


Bitter Hearts (middle of the ride)

by bookstoreromantic



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 12:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3977833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookstoreromantic/pseuds/bookstoreromantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fresh out of prison, Emma’s not a student at Boston University. She’s just using the library while she studies for her GED exams. Killian doesn’t know that though, and Emma doesn’t ever want him to find out. Not when he’s the first friend she’s had in years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bitter Hearts (middle of the ride)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fresh out of prison, Emma’s not a student at Boston University. She’s just using the library while she studies for her GED exams. Killian doesn’t know that though, and Emma doesn’t ever want him to find out. Not when he’s the first friend she’s had in years. Part college au, part sad Emma headcanon.

            She’s never missed Boston. It’s not home, (no place ever has been, really) but it is familiar. Emma grew up in and around the city, bouncing through various foster families and group homes, never staying anywhere longer than a few months. She’d moved around a lot after escaping the system too, first on her own and then with Neal. It was prison that had grounded her, the eleven months she’d spent there the longest she’d stayed anywhere after the Swans had given her up.

            Emma had hated every minute she’d spent in the desert so she booked it to Tallahassee as soon as she found the car that Neal had been _oh, so kind_ to leave her. But the city’s not near the beach, and the broken pieces of a promised home choke her every day she spends there. She leaves after just a few weeks with no real destination in mind. Packs up the bug and heads up the coast until she needs cash and decides that Boston seems as good a place as any to get some.

            She gets a job at a 24-hour diner in Fenway, not far from the ballpark and across the turnpike from the universities that line the Charles River. Mrs. Lucas likes a project, and she insists that Emma call her ‘Granny’ the way everyone else does. The diner looks like it hasn’t been redecorated in her lifetime — aged wallpaper covers the walls, there’s cracked linoleum on the floor, and newspaper clippings hang seemingly everywhere in cheap, mismatched frames. It’s clean though, and popular with students for its large, wallet-friendly plates.

            Emma picks up the overnight shift — she’s got nowhere to live, and if she’s gonna be sleeping in her car she’d rather it be in broad daylight. She drives across to the YWCA a couple times a week for a shower and bums around the river on afternoons when the weather’s nice. The city is full of students around her age and she sometimes finds herself hanging out on the different campuses, trying to imagine if there were ever a way she could have wound up in such a place, full of hope for a brighter future. Emma doesn’t even know what she’d study, hasn’t given thought to the question of what she wants to do with her life since she took a quiz in high school that told her she should be a police officer.

            She’d left high school before getting her diploma, and her and Neal never got to find out what ‘going straight’ together would look like. At the time she hadn’t cared how they lived, so long as she was with him.

            That had pretty much blown up in her face. How she’s living now isn’t great but it’s something. It’s all she’s got. Then one day before her shift Granny catches her napping in the bug and drags her out of the parking lot and into what looks to be a converted garage attached to the diner.

            “I cleared the storage out of here when Ashley’s stepmother put her out on the street,” the older woman says, blocking the exit with both hands on her hips as she watches Emma closely. “She stayed for a few months before she had the baby and Sean got his act together.”

            She and Ashley don’t usually work the same shift — thank God, because she’s not sure what she’d do if she had to constantly be reminded of the little baby she gave away. She’s covered for the other girl a few times though when Alexandra has been sick. It makes her wonder… if she had been here instead of in jail, would she have kept her son?

            Emma looks around the space, takes in the single bed, the three-drawer dresser with peeling paint, and the small side table with a microwave and toaster oven stacked on top of each other.

            “It’s not much to look at,” Granny continues, “But it’s heated. Which is more than I can say for that deathtrap of yours once winter comes around.”

            She wants to turn it down. Wants to say ‘thanks, but no thanks’ and get out of there as fast as she can for all the same reasons that she’s never stayed at a shelter. (It’s not that she doesn’t like people, just that she doesn’t trust them. The risk isn’t usually worth it, even when they’re trying to help.) But she hadn’t planned on leaving Boston just yet, and with winter only a few months off... if she wanted to stay living in her car she should have stayed in Florida.

            “How much?” she manages to ask, hating how rough her voice sounds.

            “You in school?”

            She shakes her head.

            “You ever finish school?” She shakes her head no again and Granny sets a key down on top of the toaster. “Get your diploma in the next six months and it’s free until then.”

            Emma’s not sure she can do much more than stare and Granny huffs. “Your shift starts in five minutes. Don’t be late.”

            The older woman turns to go and she reaches for the key, her fingers tracing over the tarnished metal. “Thank you,” she manages, but she’s not even sure if her boss hears her. 

* * *

            It’s not that she’s never tried to get her high school equivalency. She’d started working on it while in prison but as her stomach had gotten larger so had her struggle with motivation and by the end she’d only written one of the tests, barely passing the social studies portion. Emma knows a second chance when she gets one though, so the next afternoon she goes and finds out where to sign up for the three tests she still has to do. She leaves the prep center with an armful of exercise books and carts everything back to the garage.

            (Her first night she’d discovered the mattress was as hard as a rock and probably older than she was but it had been nice to stretch out her legs instead of dozing curled up in the back of the bug.)

            She loathes studying in the space. It’s fine as a place to sleep, but the grey walls and dim lighting remind her of a prison cell, of dry desert air and a growing belly. The following week she tries out various different coffee shops and rejects all of them as too distracting. She’s not like the other people studying around her, doesn’t have the money to plunk down on an iPod and a pair of headsets to help tune out the rest of the world, let alone to buy fancy drinks on a daily basis.

            Eventually she finds herself tucked away in a corner of Boston University’s Mugar Memorial Library. The semester only started late the week before so the library is quiet and nearly empty. She’s not worried about the reasoning through language arts exam so she spends most of her time on the science and math material. Science is easier but math… not so much. Emma has to force herself to do algebra by promising herself a treat afterwards. (She remembers some of this, was not a terrible student when she’d been in school. Just an inconsistent one.)

            It’s after two hours of working on problems in the library that she ends up wandering through the halls in search of a bake sale to satisfy her sweet tooth. She finds one in the College of Arts and Sciences and treats herself to a chocolate cupcake with buttercream icing and star-shaped sprinkles. There’s a crowd of students nearby but she leans against the wall on the edge of the group to savour her treat, holding her messenger bag across her body.

            An older man with a limp and a cane walks up and unlocks a classroom and the students all start filing in. In short time the crowd has thinned enough that the professor can see her and he regards her and her half-eaten cupcake with raised eyebrows.

            “You know,” he says, “You can finish that in class.”

            Emma tries to correct him through the chocolate in her mouth but there’s something about him that stops her. Something commanding in the quiet way that he speaks and carries himself and it makes the words die in her throat. She lets him usher her in, figuring that she was done studying for the day anyway and what the hell, maybe it will be interesting.

            She takes a seat about three-quarters of the way up the lecture hall and pops the last bite of cupcake into her mouth before pulling out a pen and notebook, deciding that she might as well not make it obvious that she’s not supposed to be there.

            “Good afternoon, everyone. I’m very sorry to report that Professor Hopper has had to take an extended leave of absence. I will be taking over the course in his stead. There is a revised syllabus, but those of you who have already bought their books don’t need to worry, the course materials are the same. My name is Professor Robert Gold, I am the chair of the Department of Psychology here at the university, and this is PS 261 — Social Psychology.” 

* * *

 

             She loves the class. Gold has an obvious depth of knowledge and a flair for showmanship that hooks her almost immediately. And the subject is _interesting_. The terminology is a little lost on her, but she picks up a syllabus on her way out and finds an older version of the textbook in the library and catches on quickly from there.

            It becomes as much of a reward as an escape. Every Tuesday and Thursday she finishes her studying early then disappears among the rest of the students, able to pretend for three hours a week that she’s just like them. This is what she would be doing if her life hadn’t gone and turned to shit right at the very start, an endless cycle of bad luck and bad decisions. She buys a new notebook just for the lecture notes and manages to steal the login id. of one Mary Margaret Blanchard (an Education student who definitely needs to learn not to fall asleep at the computer) which lets her access databases for articles not in the textbook.

            She doesn’t dare participate in discussions for fear of being found out and her preferred seat is selected with anonymity in mind (not too close, not too far, and not next to anyone), but the class is a highlight of her new study routine that sees her on campus almost as much as she’s at the diner.

            The GED stuff still sucks, but now that she can see what else is out there she’s a little more motivated to get the exams over and done with. Emma doubts she’ll ever be able to afford university and she still doesn’t know what she wants to do with the rest of her life but it definitely doesn’t involve working the overnight shift at Granny’s Diner forever.

            It’s not that the diner is awful — most nights she’s alone out front; just her and the cook serving up partiers trying to sober up and then the early-risers looking for coffee before her shift ends. In the early part of the evening she’s usually working with Granny’s grand-daughter, Ruby, who works up until ten and then goes off in search of entertainment. Granny is constantly threatening to throw her on the overnight shift but never follows through. Emma wouldn’t mind the company though — Ruby isn’t afraid of holding her own, even if that usually means flirting with half the customers.

            She’s behind the counter watching Ruby do just that (she’s pretty sure she hears something about lemurs and wonders what that could possibly have to do with the waitress’ vet school application) when a guy in one of the booths signals to her.

            Grabbing the coffee pot out of habit, she heads over, careful not to smirk at the pathetic picture the friend sitting across from him makes with his face buried in his arms on the table. (Granny’s been on her about her people skills lately. It’s not that she’s ever rude, but apparently she has trouble keeping her thoughts off her face when people are wasting her time.)

            “Evening lass, do you happen to have a dessert menu? My miserable and moronic friend here believes that cheesecake will solve his relationship woes.”

            “Let me guess,” she says, topping off their drinks. “You think he should go for the usual tub-of-ice-cream prescription?”

            “’S not gonna help, mate,” the other guy says, lifting his head. “I could be drowning in a pool of marshmallows and still be miserable.”

            “Well, we don’t have that, I’m afraid. And there’s no dessert menu either, but there _is_ cheesecake. You’re welcome to come up to the counter and see what else we’ve got.”

            “Thanks,” guy #1 says and she nods before turning to head back.

            “Hey, I know you right? We have a class together?”

            Emma stops in her tracks and turns, unable to keep the frown off her face. “Um, maybe?”

            The guy grins and it sets off an unwanted flutter in her stomach. He’s easy on the eyes, that’s for sure. A little scruffy, dark hair, blue eyes, and a cleaner sounding accent than his friend. But good looks and an easy smile have never gotten her anything worthwhile before. Whoever this guy is, he’s not worth the risk.

            “I’m Killian,” he says, holding out his hand. “And this is Will.”

            “Emma,” she obliges, reluctantly shaking his hand. “Let me know if you want that dessert.”

            She’s barely back behind the counter before Ruby corners her.

            “Who’s the guy?”

            “I don’t know. I think he goes to B.U.”

            The other girl raises a perfectly manicured eyebrow and Emma regrets saying anything. “You know that by looking at him?”

            She shrugs and crosses her arms over her chest. She likes Ruby about as much as she likes anyone, but she’s not going to give in to a gossipy interrogation.

            Ruby just rolls her eyes. “You should go back there. He’s glanced over half a dozen times in the last minute alone and he’s _cute_.”

            “I’m not here to flirt.”

            “Well, that’s your loss then,” she says, grabbing a rag and heading out to wipe down a table. She leans over way further than necessary in front of the guy she was chatting with before and if the display makes Emma shake her head and put the clean mugs away a little harder than necessary she won’t admit it.

            Since he’d mentioned it, she’s pretty sure that she _does_ recognize Killian from Social Psychology lectures. He and his friend don’t wind up getting the cheesecake, but he keeps looking over at her anyway, even giving a little wave as they leave. An hour later Ruby ends her shift and leaves with lemur-guy and Emma is grateful to be alone again. The last thing she needs is someone trying to be friends with her. 

* * *

 

             Emma shifts uncomfortably in her seat as Professor Gold continues to talk about the Stanford Prison Experiment. This week’s topic is conformity and obedience and if she’d known what she was getting into she’d have stayed at the library. It had started out okay, but then he’d gone off on a tangent and drawn half the class into a discussion and Emma had sunk into her seat, just wishing that she could disappear.

            Most days she manages not to think about it. But listening to a bunch of people going on about internalizing roles and behaviour when they have no idea what prison is actually like... It’s like there’s a bright neon arrow pointing at her for everyone to see screaming, “Convict!”

            Emma digs her nails into her palms and forces herself to stay seated and silent.

            From the corner of her eye she sees the person on her right slide across the handful of empty seats between them and realizes that it’s the guy from the diner just as he leans in conspiratorially.

            “Gold’s a bit sketchy if you ask me. Bet he wishes it had been his own experiment so he could milk it for all it’s worth.”

            Under almost any other situation she’d have rolled her eyes at the unwanted conversation but now she latches onto the distraction. “I’m sure there are loads of famous, questionably ethical experiments yet to be done.”

            Killian snorts. “Too right, lass. Either way, this is exactly the kind of messed up shit that makes me glad I’m in engineering.” He looks over at her and Emma keeps her gaze locked straight ahead. “What’s your major? Please don’t say psychology now that I’ve gone and put my foot in my mouth.”

            She should have seen it coming, give a mouse a cookie and all, but the question still catches her off guard. “Oh, um, I haven’t decided,” she mumbles, hoping that’s an actual thing and not just something that happens on tv.

            She can see him tilt his head in her peripheral vision, considering, but refuses to look over at him. She’s not sure which is worse at the moment — paying attention to the discussion going on in class, or fumbling her way through a conversation about majors and career plans that she doesn’t have.

            “Why don’t you say something?”

            “Excuse me?”

            He points his chin towards where Gold is gesticulating while rambling about selection bias and the lack of a neutral observer. “You seem like you have an opinion on this stuff.”

            Emma exhales sharply and lets go of her grip on the armrest to fiddle with her pen, still refusing to meet his eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”

            “You know someone who went to prison.”

            It’s so quiet that at first she’s not sure she’d heard him correctly, thinks that he’s somehow picked up on that bright neon arrow. But he’d said it so softly and he was still leaning towards her...

            Emma takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Yeah,” she says, finally looking over at him.

            He nods. “My dad did some time when I was young. Might still be, for all I know. We haven’t heard from him in awhile.”

            There’s not really much she can say to that. “I’m sorry.”

            Killian scrunches up his face in distaste and she almost laughs. She knows exactly how he feels and it’s the exact same way she always does whenever someone finds out about her shitty past.

            “It was a long time ago,” he says. “But I know what it feels like.”

            She bites her lip and nods, glancing over at him again and starting a doodle with her pen.

            “So what kind of engineering?” 

* * *

 

             Killian sits next to her every class after that. He waggles his eyebrows at her each time he can tell she’s holding back an opinion and Emma rolls her eyes in response but it’s comfortable, sitting with him and chatting a little before and after class. He’s in mechanical engineering with an aerospace concentration and doing a minor in English literature (not that any of that actually means something to her) and she fumbles her way through telling him that she’s working at Granny’s and is only here part-time, which is only half a lie. She finds out that he’d lived in Boston for a couple years but mostly grew up in London with his brother before coming back over for university on a scholarship. It’s a struggle to find the pieces of her past that she’s comfortable sharing in return but she winds up telling him that she grew up around Boston and had traveled the country for a bit before coming back to the city. (He seems to perk up at that, and she wonders if he also has a bit of wanderlust in him.) They flirt a little back and forth, but mostly she just enjoys the feeling of having a friend for the first time in a decade.

            They even work on an assignment together. He joins her at her usual spot in the library before class one week and they split up the articles they have to review. She can’t turn it in, but it gives her a break from her GED stuff and she finds she enjoys spending time with him outside of class as well.

            Sometimes Killian will come by the diner on his own late at night when its quiet, spreading his textbooks out across the table and working on assignments for his engineering courses. Emma will join him for a hot chocolate on her break but their friendship never branches out further. And she knows that as nice as it is, she can’t let it. The more time she spends with him and the more pieces of herself that she shares, the greater the chance he’ll discover she’s just a fraud.

            She’s been on the other side of it before, way back when she found out Lily hadn’t been an orphan after all. She didn’t stay then. There’s no reason to think he would react any differently than she had.

            They’re halfway through the semester, studying social cognition and attribution, when he and a couple friends come into the diner near the start of her shift. Apart from the guy who’d been moaning about marshmallows when Killian had introduced himself she’s never met any of the people he’s mentioned to her. It makes her uneasy; wondering what’s changed, and if her little bubble is about to burst.

            “Isn’t that your B.U. guy?” Ruby whispers and Emma silently curses whatever made him come in before she was alone at the diner.

            “He’s not — I… No,” she stammers.

            Ruby smirks. “Wonder why he’s coming over here then.”

            She spins around to see that the guys he brought with him have both sat down at a table but Killian, sure enough, is headed over towards where her and Ruby stand behind the counter.

            “Hi,” he says. He’s scratching behind his ear and he seems nervous and it just makes her nervous too.

            “Um, hi. I’ll be over in a minute to take your orders.”

            “Actually it’s only gonna be three coffees to go. We just came by because I wanted to, ah — Well, my friend Jefferson, the one in the ridiculous scarf,” she leans over to see who he’s talking about as he continues, “He lives in this big old house that he inherited and he’s finally agreed to host a party there on Saturday and I was wondering if you might like to come.”

            She stares at him, her mouth hanging open, as she tries to figure out what to say. This isn’t just a friend thing — he’s asking her out, and the thought should have her leaving Boston in the dust, memories of the last time a guy smiled at her like that flashing through her mind. Instead she’s surprised by the fact that she wants to go, wants desperately for the little life she’s fabricated to be real.

            It’s far too risky, though.

            “I work Saturday night. I work, well, every night.”

            “Not this Saturday!”

            They both turn to look at Ruby, who’s practically bouncing on her toes next to Emma.

            “Ruby—”

            “I’ll cover for you! Granny won’t have a problem with it and you can take my Sunday morning shift with Ashley — there’s way better tips. But you should totally go to this thing, Emma. Have _fun_ for once!”

            Killian’s grinning at her and this is it: she’s in a corner and there’s no backing out.

            “Yeah, okay.”

            “Great! So I’ll get those coffees and you can get the address and all that stuff,” Ruby says, skipping off and leaving them alone.

            Emma goes for what she hopes is an exasperated smile, fidgeting with the napkin dispenser on the counter between them. Killian’s still just smiling at her and she finally rolls her eyes.

            “So where does Jefferson live?” 

* * *

 

             Jefferson, she finds out, lives in a brownstone just off of Kenmore Square and not far from the university. For two days Emma tries desperately not to think about the party, which of course means that she doesn’t think about anything else. She’s never been to a party before, was never invited to any in all the schools she went to growing up. Her biggest worry isn’t so much the not knowing anyone there but more that the default conversation topics (what are you doing in school? What do you want to do when you get out?) are all things she can’t answer.

            Plus, she’s pretty sure Killian wants to date her, and she has absolutely _no_ idea what she wants to do about that.

            There’s also the question of what to wear. Ruby makes multiple suggestions from her own closet, all of which Emma rejects immediately. She does borrow her co-worker’s curling iron though, caving to the other girl’s insistence that she do at least one thing special with her appearance. Other than that she goes for her usual jeans paired this time with a sheer black tank top. Jefferson’s place isn’t that far, and it _is_ a college party (with all the drinking that implies, she assumes), so she leaves the bug parked at the diner and takes her leather jacket for the walk over. It’s about twenty minutes to get to Bay State Road between the square and the river and she finds the house pretty easily, even if she’s a little concerned about there being no sign of a party happening yet.

            She’s standing on the sidewalk wondering if she’s too early when the door swings open and Jefferson calls her to come inside.

            There’s some music playing in another room and she hears voices, but overall it seems pretty low-key and not at all what she was expecting.

            Emma says as much as Jefferson takes her coat and he laughs. “Sorry to disappoint.”

            He leads her into the living room where a dozen or so people are sitting around talking and eating pizza. Killian jumps off the armrest of the couch when he sees her, drawing her into the room and making a lightning quick round of introductions before taking her to the kitchen for “nourishment.”

            (His hand is warm against her back and it’s startling because now that she feels it she realizes he’s always been careful not to touch her. He’s in her space when they’re bantering, but not part of it.)

            They talk for a bit before heading back into the living room, pizza and beer in hand, and Emma settles onto the floor next to the couch, listening to the different conversations going on as she enjoys her pizza (super cheesy and absolutely _delicious_ ). Killian forgoes the armrest to sit next to her, sending a grin her way every once in a while and filling in missing information when he can. (It’s a hazard of being the new person in a crew, all the inside jokes and conversation shortcuts that she’s not part of.)

            (It would be hard if she wasn’t used to it.)

            She mingles as best she can and while some of his friends make an effort to talk to her, for the most part she’s content to float between conversations. She learns that Jefferson is a psych major who hates how people only want magical solutions to their problems and that Robin (who she recognizes as the other guy Killian had brought to the diner when he came to invite her) is in Economics and wants to destroy the system from the inside. She chats with his girlfriend Marian, teases Will about desserts, and meets the latter’s on-again/off-again girlfriend Ana as well as a small host of others.

            It’s when Killian is out of the room and Tina is harassing Jefferson about using disposable plates that Will slides into the empty spot next to her on the floor.

            “So, how badly does Professor Gold want to murder Jones? D’you figure he took over the class ‘cos he wanted to make life a living hell for ‘im?”

            “What?”

            She doesn’t mean to sound so abruptly incredulous, but this is the first time she’s heard of any sort of grudge between Killian and their professor. After all, this is an elective for him, how would they even know each other?

            (The other part of her knows there were clues. She remembers the way he’d frowned when she’d invented what she thought was an average grade for the article review they’d worked on together, how he’d refused to share his grade in return. And he’s always been a good seatmate for her because he doesn’t participate or draw attention to them, just keeps his head down and does his work when he’s not trying to make her smile.)

            “Why would Gold want to murder Killian?”

            “Because when he did Psych 101 back in first-year the professor was Gold’s wife and she had a bit of a thing for him,” Jefferson says, jumping out of his argument with Tina-the-green-fairy to chime in.

            “For him, or with him? Because I always heard it was with him,” Ana says and Emma shakes her head in an attempt to clear the conversation that she does not want to be having.

            “I leave the room for two minutes and you lot start spreading lies about me. What friends you are,” Killian says, rejoining the group. Emma smiles up at him because really, she’s a high school dropout and juvenile offender, what should she care if he slept with one of his professors?

            Killian winks at her before clapping Jefferson on the back. “I’m afraid we’ve drank you dry, mate. Want me to run out and procure some more libations?”

            Will mutters something about Killian’s vocabulary when he’s drinking and it makes her snort, drawing his attention over to her.

            “Care to come with, love?”

            She unfolds her legs and pushes up off the floor with a bit of a wince. “Actually, I should probably head out. I’ve got the morning shift at the diner tomorrow.” She casts her eyes across the group and smiles, “Thanks for having me.”

            “You okay to drive?”

            “I left my car at work, so I will be by the time I get there.” She also won’t have to drive anywhere by then either, but they don’t know that.

            Killian frowns and crosses over to her. “Let me walk you there, then. These arseholes can wait an hour for their next beer.”

            She opens her mouth to turn him down — she’s a big girl, she can take care of herself — but then shrugs instead. “Sure.” 

* * *

             The night is cool and she zips up her jacket as they head out the door, stuffing her hands in her pockets. Killian falls into step beside her easily and there’s a beat of semi-awkward silence before he huffs.

            “Sorry about them, by the way.”

            She lets her gaze fall to the sidewalk as she smiles. “Don’t worry about it.”

            “You’re not curious?” he asks, glancing over at her as they reach the end of Jefferson’s street and turn down towards the square.

            “It’s really not my place.”

            He hums. “Did you have fun otherwise?”

            “I did, yeah.” And it’s true. It had been nice to go out and simply sit around talking and drinking beer with people her own age. The comfortable casualness of the night hadn’t been what she’d been expecting, but it had been the nice kind of surprise.

            “Will and Robin are talking about going up to Montreal for Thanksgiving weekend to hit up some bars. You’re welcome to come along if you like.”

            Emma chuckles. She can imagine exactly who’s idea that was and she’s not surprised that the brits in the group would rather go up to where the drinking age is lower than stick around for the shopping madness that takes over on Black Friday.

            “I think I’ll pass, thanks.”

            They walk through Kenmore Square with its partiers and Citgo sign and turn down Beacon Street, crossing over the turnpike and railway tracks before turning off a block before Audubon Circle. As much as she had fun at the party and as much as she’s worried about what tonight could mean for her friendship with Killian, this walk back with him is the most enjoyable part of her night by far. It’s just them, bantering comfortably back and forth. He likes to quote Shakespeare when he’s a little drunk, apparently, reciting soliloquies at her and looking hilariously scandalized when she bites her thumb at him in response. Emma tells stories from late nights at the diner and he dishes about the engineering prank the department has planned for the spring. It’s fun, and she wishes that Granny’s was further away, or that she had just asked for the night off instead of swapping shifts with Ruby and having to leave early as a result.

            “So why engineering?” she asks as they turn onto her street.

            He huffs and it’s this long, drawn out thing. As if she’s placed the weight of the world on his shoulders with her question. “I wanted to build ships,” he answers. “These days I think I mostly just want to sail them.”

            “And go where?”

            “I don’t know, anywhere. Neverland.”

            There’s a little bit of a lost boy hiding behind the bright in his eyes and she forces herself to ignore it. She doesn’t want his story, not when the cost is usually having to share her own.

            “Alright there, Peter Pan.”

            “Peter Pan?” he scoffs, the humour back in his voice. “I’m more like a dashing Captain Hook.”

            It’s Emma’s turn to scoff, and she bumps her shoulder into his before turning serious. She may not want to talk about either of their pasts, but feels it’s important that he know she understands. “Psychology is the only thing I have for myself,” she says. “Everything else I do because I have to.”

            They’ve reached the diner and he stops walking, turning to face her. “What about tonight?” he asks quietly. “Was tonight for yourself?”

            She snorts. “Tonight was for Ruby.”

            She should leave it at that. Say goodbye and sit in her car until she’s sure he’s gone. Maybe drive around the block, even. But he’s staring at her with his ridiculous eyes that are bright and blue even in the dark and she knows what he’s really asking. And maybe it’s the beers that she had but she can’t bring herself to tell him no. She _likes_ him. And she likes who she gets to be when she’s with him.

            Her eyes flick between his and then she’s grabbing the lapels of his jacket, pulling him into her. “This is for me,” she whispers, barely a second before his lips crash into her own. 

* * *

              If there’s one thing she’s sure of, it’s that she’s made a terrible mistake.

            Never has she more wanted to bang her head against a wall than in the days following the party. One kiss, one stupid, _stupid_ kiss, and she’s turned into a pathetic excuse for a human being. It’s all she thinks about, her mind constantly flashing back to how his lips had felt against hers, the way he’d run his fingers through her hair, the feeling of his scruff under the pad of her thumb. She hasn’t kissed anyone in over a year, not since Neal, but now she can’t even remember what that felt like.

            And when she’s not thinking about it, she’s freaking out over what it’s going to mean for when (or _if_ ) she goes back to Social Psychology. She stares at the door to the diner through her double on Sunday and again all through Monday night — even though she knows he has a huge exam that he’s studying for — terrified that he’s going to come in. She can’t deal with him and his smiles and his flirty banter. And never has she been more relieved to not be able to afford a phone because she knows he’d be texting her but she needs more time to figure out what the hell to do.

            She wants to be the kind of person who can take a chance on him, but she’s been deceiving him from the start. Even if she does want to make that leap… she can’t without telling him the truth — about her schooling at least — but the chances of him still wanting her afterwards are slim-to-none.

            And that’s without telling him about jail, or being an orphan who nobody wanted, a teenage runaway who gave her baby up. Maybe he would understand — he’s given her enough bits and pieces for her to know his childhood probably wasn’t the greatest either — but he’s pulled himself out of that. He deserves more than someone still in the thick of it.

            Emma wants to run, but she’s committed to staying in Boston at least through the winter and already has her first GED exam scheduled for next month. And she was telling the truth when she said that psychology is the one thing she does that’s actually for _her_. She’s not ready to give it up yet.

            (She doesn’t want to lose her friendship with Killian either, but knows she doesn’t really have a choice. No matter what she does, he’ll leave eventually. Better to cut and run before she makes the mistake of getting in too deep.)

            By the time Tuesday’s class rolls around she’s committed to sticking her head in the sand. She stays a little longer at the library and makes sure that she’s one of the last people to file into class, keeping her head down and taking a seat on the opposite side of the room and a few rows down from where she knows he’s sitting. It’s agony, and she swears that she feels his eyes on her through the full ninety minutes. She barely takes any notes, tapping her pen and bouncing her leg anxiously as Gold lectures about choice and self-justification. She’s driving her new seatmate crazy, she’s sure, but as much as she wanted to keep coming to class now she just wants to leave.

            She can’t get out of there fast enough when it finally ends, hurriedly throwing her stuff into her bag and not even closing it before she’s out of her seat. But she’s not fast enough, is barely in the hall when she feels a hand close around her arm and spin her around. Her bag goes flying — all of her books and materials scattering across the floor as other students try to get out of the way.

            “What the hell?” she yells, jerking her arm away and facing him.

            Her hostility falters when she looks at him because she’d thought he’d be maybe a little hurt, but she wasn’t expecting the anger that’s etched out on his face.

            “Aye, I could ask the same of you,” he bites back, indignant. “Have I done something to offend you, lass?”

            ‘Look, I’m sorry, alright?” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “But the other night was mistake.”

            “I’m not some bloody ponce. If you wanted to stay as friends you could have just told me.”

            She flinches and Killian tilts his head at her, realizing what her reaction means. He licks his lips, raises his chin and she hates that he can read her so easily.

            “No, that’s not it, is it?” he says. “You don’t want to be anything at all.”

            “It’s nothing personal. Trust me, it’s better this way.”

            “You don’t believe that. You just don’t want to take a chance,” he argues.

            “Not everyone can afford to, Killian!” she snaps and she can practically see the fight drain out of him.

            “Too right, love,” he sighs, stepping away and bending to pick up one of her workbooks.

            Emma sucks in a panicked breath and shoves him away. He nearly falls on his ass but she doesn’t care, yanking the high school-level math book from his grasp and clutching it to her chest.

            “Emma—” he starts, but she can’t even look at him, scrambling to get the rest of her workbooks before he can.

            “Just leave, Killian,” she begs. “Please, just leave.”

            She knows he’s looking at her but he _saw_ , he _knows_ , and she knows exactly what she’ll see when she meets his eyes. She knows she’ll just see the same look that she always has when people find out everything she’s lacking and she doesn’t want to see it, not from him, not ever again.

            Emma takes a deep breath, presses her lips together, and lifts her head anyway, holding her bag close to her chest and staring him down until he shakes his head and finally walks away. 

* * *

              It doesn’t make her feel better.

            She knew it wouldn’t. Knew that pushing him away would only make her feel worse. Emma tells herself that it’s better in the long run, that the longer she stuck around the worse it would be when _he_ eventually left _her_.

            She barely gets through her shift at the diner that night and she knows that Ruby and Granny notice. She wants to be angry but only has herself to be angry with so instead she glares at every customer, drags the chairs around furiously as she mops, and drowns herself in coffee. She barely says two words to Ashley when the young mother comes in to relieve her and sleeps through the day on Wednesday, skipping out on studying in favour of going to see a movie by herself. By the time her next shift rolls around she feels dull and numb and when she wakes up on Thursday she knows that she has to go back.

            Not to class — Emma doesn’t think she can set foot in Social Psychology again — but to the university, at least. It’s the best place for her to study, and she’ll be damned if she loses her focus, or anything else, to a boy.

            She sits at her usual table in the library, spreading her workbooks around her and burying herself in sines and cosines and tangents which still fail to make sense three hours in. She checks her watch out of habit as four o’clock comes around before hiding it in her bag so she won’t look at it anymore. What’s done is done. Time to move on.

            Emma turns her full attention back to the set of problems she’s been working on, determined to do another hour of work before heading to the diner. A shadow blocks her light and she looks up with a glare to find Killian standing across the table from her, bag slung over his shoulder.

            “You should be in class,” she mutters, folding her arms over the book in front of her.

            “So should you,” he retorts.

            Emma gives him an exasperated look and picks her pencil back up. “We both know that’s not true.”

            Killian drops his shoulders and sighs. “Look, I want to apologize. It was never my intention to hurt you and I shouldn’t have pushed the issue. I was an arse and I’m sorry.”

            She shrugs and looks back down at her work. “You didn’t know.”

            “I hope you’re not skipping because of it.”

            “It’s not skipping if you’re not a student,” she replies, not looking up at him.

            “Why do you go?” he asks, his voice soft. He’s fiddling with the back of the chair and something in his tone makes her meet his eyes.

            “I like it,” she says simply.

            “I’ve seen your work. You’re a better student than I am. Better psychology student, at any rate.”

            Emma rolls her eyes at him. “I’m a lousy student. Probably can’t even pass this stupid math exam.”

            It feels weird, talking with him as if he’s always known that she isn’t really enrolled like him. Killian scratches the back of his head and gestures to the textbook, silently asking her permission. She’s got nothing left to lose at this point so she nods and he turns it towards him.

            “Trig?”

            “I have to pass in the next few months. Granny’s letting me stay in the converted garage attached to the diner rent-free so long as I have my GED by the spring.”

            If she was testing what his reaction would be to _that_ revelation, he doesn’t give her much to go on. Killian hums quietly and pulls out the chair, grabbing a pencil from his bag. “My brother taught me a trick for remembering the relationships between the functions,” he says, sketching out a shape in the margin of her graph paper. “Can I show you?”

            Emma just stares at him. She’d been so sure that he’d be like everyone else and wouldn’t want anything to do with her after finding out she was just a dropout. Hell, he’d been so angry she’d even considered the possibility that he’d tell Gold and have her banned from lectures out of spite. Instead he’d left class to seek her out and was offering his help with her math problems.

            She wasn’t sure, but this was probably what it felt like to have a friend.

            “Emma?”

            His question shakes her out of her thoughts and she leans forward to get a better look at what he’s doing.

            “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got feelings about these two, you guys. There might be more at some point.


	2. Not a Picture Perfect Life (write your own line)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma starts taking the tests for her GED while figuring out how to be friends (or more) with Killian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: The follow-up to Bitter Hearts, by popular demand.

            Her and Killian reach a sort of peace that afternoon at the library and they spend about an hour working on math problems together. He doesn’t push her for an explanation or ask her to come back to Social Psychology. Doesn’t stop by the diner during her shifts on the weekend either. And Emma knows it’s not because he’s not interested, just that he had genuinely only gone looking for her so he could apologize and that the rest — where they go from here — is entirely up to her.

            She knows where she’d like to go, she’s just too stubborn and afraid to try. Part of her still doesn’t believe that he could want her or that he won’t throw her away. The other part wants to be _more_ on her own first. Emma’s never had the opportunity to build a life before, to build herself up on her own terms. And she knows that it would be so easy to lose herself in Killian. It’s not that she thinks he’s going to betray her like Neal, but she has to know that she can pick herself back up again if she gives in to the attraction building between them only for it to all fall apart.

            The decision to wait isn’t a test to see if he’ll stick around, it’s a challenge for her to rise to and be ready for.

            The following Tuesday, Emma finishes her studying just before four o’clock, packs up her things, and slips into her usual seat next to him in the lecture hall as if the previous week had never happened. She may not be ready to date — may never be ready to date — but she can do this much, at least.

            Killian smiles at her when she sits down and it makes her heart skip a beat, the way it lights up his face. Determined to push the flutters away, she holds out her hand.

            “Friends?” she asks.

            Killian’s hand is warm in hers and he holds it a beat longer than she knows is necessary. “Aye, friends.”

            Things go pretty much back to normal after that. She sees Killian at lectures and he comes by Granny’s once or twice a week as well. Sometimes he doesn’t even do homework, just sits at the counter and keeps her company for an hour or two. Ruby teases her about him constantly, and it’s hard to argue when Emma stares at his lips any time he’s not looking at her.

            (The worst is when he orders a hot chocolate, which he knows is her favourite, and the whipped cream sticks to his upper lip.)

            (She’s pretty sure he does it on purpose.)

            It doesn’t help that he’s ratcheted up the flirting and innuendo. Which is just fine with her because she gives back as good as she gets. If she felt like their interactions before were weighed down by everything she was keeping from him, now there’s a tension between them that has nothing to do with secrets and everything to do with their kiss. It’s like a coiled spring that pulls tighter each time one of them comes close to the line she’s drawn between them.

            He doesn’t ask her out though. Doesn’t push her for anything more than she’s willing to give. In return, Emma tries to open up more, to offer up more pieces of herself. Not Neal and prison and the baby she gave away — those mistakes were hers alone and are harder to voice than the ones she was subjected to growing up. But when she decided not to run she also made a promise to herself not to change topics if he asked about her past. She doesn’t have to tell him everything, but she won’t lie to him anymore.

            Emma also makes an effort to go to him for help when she gets stuck in her math or science problems, though she’s doing less of them now that her Reasoning Through Language Arts exam is fast approaching. Most of her time at the library is spent doing practice exams and honing her essay skills. By the time the exam comes around in early November (she has to miss a psychology lecture to write it) Emma is actually glad to be getting on with the tests after two months of preparation.

            When she came to Boston she didn’t think she’d be sitting in an exam room, tapping her pencil and waiting for the order to start. Didn’t think she’d have a job and a place to sleep and at least one person that she can call a friend. But here she is.

            Killian comes by the diner that night and gives her copies of his notes from the class she missed and they clink hot chocolates in celebration. Emma wraps her hands around the mug and sips carefully to hide her smile.

            Boston’s never been home. But she’s starting think that maybe it could be. 

* * *

             Emma’s alone out front, mopping up vomit for the second time in one night — Anton, the gentle giant of a night cook, had had to come out of the kitchen to help remove the rowdy group — when Killian comes into the diner. He looks as grim as she’s ever seen him and immediately she remembers what he said he’d be doing today.

            She touches his arm briefly as he walks up to her. “Hey, just let me put this away real quick.”

            He grunts in reply and this cannot be good — her ridiculous, wordy Killian being reduced to animal noises. Shaking her head at the thought of _her_ Killian, she wheels the mop bucket away and washes her hands before heading back out. She starts to make a hot chocolate right away, topping it with cinnamon and adding a couple mini marshmallows for good measure.

            “Belle agrees that the quality of my work is above the grade level on my transcript,” he says without preamble as she sets the hot mug down in front of him. “She says she’ll talk to him but there’s no guarantee.”

            Belle French was Killian’s TA in Social Psychology. A former English major, they’d apparently quickly bonded over literature and so when his grade had come in — not a fail, but a low enough pass to drag his GPA down and threaten his scholarship — he’d gone to her first.

            Emma leans against the counter, tracing patterns idly on the aged laminate. “I still think you should have let me punch him in the face.”

            He rolls his eyes but she gets the smirk she was looking for. “But if you break his nose, it will be that much harder for you to sit in on another class next semester.”

            Killian pulls a folded piece of paper out of his back pocket and opens it up flat on the counter to reveal a course schedule for the spring term.

            “I don’t have any electives this time,” he says, smoothing out the creases, “But there’s a world literature course we could do together. The readings are all centered on the oceans and there’s a class trip to the Fine Arts museum.”

            He’s sounding a bit more like his usual self — _the hot chocolate must be taking effect_ , she thinks — and Emma chews her lip, hating herself for the words about to come out of her mouth.

            “I wasn’t planning on sitting in on another class,” she says softly. His head snaps up and she watches his face carefully, trying to read the emotions there before he can lock them away.

            “I really enjoyed Social Psychology,” she continues, her eyes following his down to the schedule as he starts putting it away. “It’s just… I want the next one to be real, you know?”

            “Yeah. Right, of course.”

            His smile is fake and it tears at her but this is not her pulling away. It’s just that she’s had enough of other people’s lies, doesn’t want to start making up her own. Her life is getting better (slowly), but she can’t pretend that it’s some fairy tale where she gets to go to university and sit next to cute boys.

            “I have news on that front, actually,” she says, pulling out her own paper from under the counter and hoping the change of subject will brighten his mood once more.

            He scans the sheet as she sets it down in front of him and his brows furrow but she can’t keep the grin off her face.

            “I gather this means you’ve passed then? What’s a 179 mean?”

            “200 is perfect. Anything above 150 is a pass and anything above 170 is honours.”

            Emma can see him doing the calculation quickly in his head. (She’s not gonna lie, she did it too, but she used the calculator on Ruby’s phone for it after being handed the envelope that had come in the mail earlier that day.)

            “So that’s like a 90%, then. That’s excellent, love.”

            She blushes and tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. “It was just essay bullshitting.”

            “Ah, but it was _honourable_ essay bullshitting.”

            She laughs, but the bell above the door chimes and she has to go hand out menus and pour coffee for a sandy-haired pair of twins that she’s seen around before. (She’s pretty sure Ruby dated one of them at some point, and thinks it’s probably the one who leers at her.) (If anyone asks she barely snickers at all when his brother kicks him under the table.)

            By the time she gets back Killian is reading her grade letter again and drumming his fingers against the counter top.

            “So you’re half done now, yeah?”

            “Yeah,” she says, slipping back behind the counter. The concept of being halfway there is exciting, and she’s glad that it hasn’t been so long that she would have to re-take the social studies exam on top of all the others.

            “Math is next?”

            Emma nods, grabbing a brownie from the display to nibble on. “I’ve got the test scheduled for just after New Year’s, and Science less than a month after that.”

            “Well, I’ve got little else to do at the moment apart from work and disputing this grade, so if you want some help with either of them, just let me know.”

            He punctuates his offer by breaking off a corner of her snack and popping it into his mouth with a wink. Emma lets her mouth hang open in mock outrage and slaps his hand away when he goes for more.

            “Just for that, I think I’m going to take you up on that.” 

* * *

            Killian hands her back a corrected problem set and Emma curses under breath as she glances over the ones she got wrong. It’s Christmas Break, and while most students are done for the year, she’s still under the weight of her quickly approaching GED math test.

            They’ve been at this for hours now and while she’s still got the holidays to study through, math is by far her worst subject. When she decided to split up the tests instead of doing them all at once she knew she wanted to leave time to re-take it if necessary. Granny hasn’t said what’ll happen when her deadline comes and Emma hasn’t brought it up, but the questions linger in her mind. If she doesn’t have her GED by March, will she be kicked out? Have to pay back the rent for the six months she’s been staying in the garage?

            Emma presses her fingers into her temple in an effort to stem the headache that’s threatening and looks up when Killian starts packing away their things.

            “I’m calling it for the day,” he says. “You should too. You look like you need some fresh air.”

            “You realize it’s freezing out, right?” she says, but she slings her bag onto her shoulder and follows him out of the library anyway.

            Winter hit fast and hard about a week ago and outside it feels more like the middle of January than December — all dark and biting cold. Emma never thought she’d wish for snow but right now she’d give her left hand for some; anything to soften the deep freeze.

            She’s betting Killian would agree if his grimace as they turn into the wind is anything to go by. Then again, it’s his own fault for not dressing warmer. She might not have a winter coat but at least she’s got a hat and gloves on.

            “You headed home?” she asks.

            “Aye. I’ve got a couple days off work now for the holiday. You?”

            “I’m never off work.” She nods down the street to where she’s parked. “Come on, I’ll drive you.”

            In the fall she would walk to the university but once the weather turned she started driving, partly just to make sure the bug was still running in the cold.

            (This wouldn’t have been an issue if she’d stayed in Tallahassee. It’s weather like this that makes her think she should have gone west instead of north. Maybe someday, though someday feels increasingly far away.)

            “How could I turn down a ride in your cheery vehicle?” he says as she slides in and leans over to unlock the door for him. The bug takes a couple of tries to start before finally coming to life and Killian winces. “I will actually get to ride in it, right?”

            “It just needs to warm up a little.” She cranks up the heat and aims the vents towards the windows to help it thaw. Emma’s still got half a tank of gas, but if it doesn’t get any warmer in the next few days she’s going to have to fill up just in case.

            “Where did you get it anyway? You don’t see many older ones around.”

            She hesitates, a thousand possible answers running through her mind. He may not know about Neal, but he’s not stupid. He knows she’s got at least one bad relationship behind her.

            (It scares her sometimes, the way he picks up on more than just the little pieces she drops. But she can read between his lines too and as much as she’s not used to it, it can be nice not to have to spell everything out. To say the minimum and know he’ll still understand.)

            “Would you believe me if I said I won it in a breakup?” she finally settles on.

           Killian leans back, slouching a little into his seat. “Well, that depends. If we were to date and then break up —” Emma raises an eyebrow at him and he hurries to add, “Not that either of those things are necessarily going to happen. But if they did, would I get the car?”

            She smirks, shifting the bug into gear and pulling out into the street. “You’d have to steal it from me first.”

            He opens his mouth and even out of the corner of her eye she can see it, the realization that that wasn’t just a line, that there’s a story behind it.

            “When are you flying home for Christmas?” she blurts out before he can follow-up on her remark.

            Killian’s mouth snaps shut and she’s glad for how early it gets dark now that he can’t see the red heating her cheeks.

            “I’m not. Can’t afford it this year. Liam wouldn’t be around anyway, he’s on tour still.”

            “Is Will staying in the city?” she asks, and she hopes he is, hopes that Killian won’t have to spend the holidays alone in his apartment.

            “Aye, at the moment. Ana might take him back to New York with her, though.”

            Emma nods and lets the conversation drop, wishing she hadn’t brought it up and focusing on the road instead. She’s done the chauffeur thing for him once or twice before so she knows the way but it gives her an excuse not to talk. Turning onto Commonwealth Avenue she taps a rhythm on the still-cold steering wheel and heads toward Brighton.

            “You should come over,” Killian says quietly, breaking the silence that had settled between them. “In the morning, after your shift. I was thinking about doing up a big breakfast — pancakes, bacon, the whole bit.”

            Emma’s chest feels tight all of a sudden and she has to remind herself to breathe. “I don’t… I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” she manages.

            “It’s only breakfast, Swan.”

            She exhales loud through her nose because it’s not just breakfast, it’s Christmas breakfast. And Christmas is a time for family and for people you love. She knows, because she’s never had anyone for Christmas.

            And she can’t — she’s not good at any of it. Her plan for the holidays was to sleep and wait for it to all be over. She can’t just go over to his place like it’s a perfectly normal thing. It’s not a normal thing, and it would mean too much. Maybe not to him, but for as much as she’s been trying to be friends with him she also has to keep him a bit at arm’s length, knowing that she can’t risk getting too attached. They still don’t see each other outside of B.U. and Granny’s because she doesn’t trust herself not to get in too deep too fast.

            She knows she’s going to. It’s only a matter of time before this thing simmering between them either boils over or he gets tired of waiting for it and leaves.

            “I’m just not very good at Christmas,” she says, checking her blind spot as Cambridge Street turns into Washington.

            “I’m not inviting you over for gifts and caroling, love. Just breakfast.”

            “Yeah, well I’m not very good at that either.”

            He shifts in his seat and she thinks he’s gotten the message, but apparently this is one of those rare times when he feels the need to push her. “Ah. I see I’ve crossed a line.”

            “Don’t,” she warns, “I’m not in the mood.” But he keeps pressing.

            “I said I was fine being friends, Emma, even though it’s not what either of us want. But I gave my word and I’ll honour it. What’s it going to take to get you to trust me?”

            Her fingers curl tightly around the steering wheel and damn it, she’s angry now too. She’s trying, he _knows_ she’s trying.

            “Trust has to be earned,” she grits out.

            “Aye, it also has to be given. And you’re too afraid. I’ll tell you one thing, love, a person who doesn’t fight for what they want deserves what they get.”

            She wants to scream. Wants to stomp away and cry, wants to punch him in the face. Of all times, why did he have to do this when she was driving? When she was trapped together with him and unable to walk away?

Emma thinks of Neal, who was ready to flee to Canada on his own until she talked him into letting her get the watches. She was the one who fought for them, and she was the one who lost everything. Was that what she _deserved_?

            (She refuses to think of the battle that came next — the one that she surrendered because it couldn’t be about her. The baby she couldn’t even hold for fear of how badly she wanted him. Emma’s never been one to back down, but not everything is as simple as he makes it sound.)

            “I’ve only got enough for one fight at a time, Killian. I need it to be for something I can actually win.”

            They hit Oak Square and never has she been more glad for a conversation to be over. Turning onto Tremont, she pulls up across from his building and clenches her teeth as he grabs his bag from the backseat.

            He opens the door to leave but stops before getting out. “I know what it feels like to lose hope, Emma, but you have to choose at some point,” he says and he sounds resigned. “I’ll walk this tightrope with you as long as you want, but you’re going to have to let me in one day or this — whatever this is — is just going to fizzle out on its own.”

            His words sting, but they’re nothing she doesn’t already know. Still, she stares straight ahead through the windshield and refuses to look over at him. Finally, he sighs.

            “Happy Christmas, Emma.”

            He’s out of the car and about to close the door when she finds her voice again. “Merry Christmas, Killian.”

            She doesn’t see him for days afterwards and soon it’s Christmas Eve and her overnight shift is spent helping Granny, Ruby, and Anton prepare all the turkeys, veggies, and stuffings for families who otherwise wouldn’t have a holiday meal. (She’ll be eating her own dinner with the Lucases in just over twelve hours — Granny hadn’t been willing to take no for an answer when she’d heard Emma’s plans.)

            By the time morning rolls around she’s exhausted, but it’s a good kind of exhausted. The ache in her feet and arms the kind that reminds her she can still do good things even when everything else crumbles around her. Tired, she unlocks the garage and bends to lift up the door when she notices a small package tucked into the corner, sheltered from the wind and snow. She picks it up and smiles to herself when she flicks the tag over to read, “ _To Emma — your friend, Killian_.”

            Holding it under her arm, she opens the garage and turns on the lamp, sitting on the bed and carefully undoing the damp wrapping paper before she even takes her coat off. Emma sucks in a breath when she breaks the tape on the tiny white box, opening it to find a delicately braided friendship bracelet inside.

            She traces it carefully, the strands of red and green and gold soft under her finger. She knows that he made it himself, that he didn’t just buy it from some guy sitting on the floor of a subway station. It makes her smile to imagine him bent over the strings, following along to an internet tutorial with Will watching over his shoulder and mocking him.

            She won’t be able to tie it on by herself, so Emma places it carefully back in the box and sets it on her bedside table. Taking off her coat and boots and pulling pjs out of her suitcase, she slips into bed and makes a mental note to bring it with her when she goes over to Granny’s for dinner. She wants to be wearing it when she goes to see Killian and apologize.

            Closing her eyes, Emma lets herself dream of hope that isn’t doomed to always be broken or taken away. 

* * *

 

             The diner is loud and bustling and Emma steps into the back for a moment, shaking her head in disbelief. She has no idea how she got here. Actually, that’s not true. It was definitely Ruby’s fault.

            One mention from her co-worker that she should bring “her B.U. guy” to the semi-private New Year’s Eve party at the diner coupled with a remark by Killian when she saw him after Christmas that he and his friends still didn’t have plans for New Year’s and the invite had fallen out of her mouth before she could stop it. Seeing the way his face had lit up, she didn’t have the heart to take it back. (Anyway, this is her holding up her end of the friendship. Opening herself up to seeing him more socially.)

            Now she’s in the middle of a party filled with his and Ruby’s friends. The two groups mingle easily (Ruby in particular seems quite taken with Killian’s med school buddy) but rather than feel like she doesn’t fit with either of them, Emma’s found herself acting as the bridge between them. Making introductions and talking to people as if they’re her friends too.

            And maybe they could be. Most of Ruby’s people she’s seen around the diner at some point and she met all of Killian’s friends a couple months ago. (She pushes the memory of that night away. Thoughts in that vein are dangerous enough without her brain conjuring up the feeling of his lips pressed against hers.)

            (It has not escaped her notice that it’s New Year’s Eve and that’s exactly what you do when the clock strikes twelve.)

            Technically speaking, she’s working tonight so she has that as an excuse to slip away if need be. Granny’s paying her to help host and entrusted her to end it the moment any liquor makes an appearance. Agreeing to this was her boss’ way of controlling her granddaughter’s partying, but it does something to her that the older woman trusts her enough to leave Emma essentially in charge for the night.

            It’s not like Ruby needs alcohol to have a good time, anyway. There’s milkshakes and popcorn galore, tables have been cleared to make a dance floor, a jukebox is playing in the corner, and a couple of old arcade games have been brought in for entertainment.

            That’s exactly where she finds Killian when she slips back into the party. He’s hunched over a Pac-Man game with both Robin and one of the twins (David, she thinks) watching from behind him, alternately yelling and thumping him on the back depending on how well he’s doing. Emma rolls her eyes at the sight, but can’t quite keep the smile off her face.

            “Children, aren’t they?”

            She turns to find Tina standing next to her, wearing a tight green dress and with her hair up in a bun.

            “Don’t they usually say something about ‘boys and toys?’” she replies, making her way over to the popcorn machine as the other girl follows.

            “Something like that.”

            Emma scoops herself one of the little bags and pops a couple pieces in her mouth, tilting it towards the other blonde in offering.

            She picks out a small handful, holding the popped kernels carefully in her palm. “So, what’s going on with you and Killian?”

            Emma closes her eyes for a moment in an effort not to roll them. “Straight to the point, huh?”

            Tina shrugs and Emma doesn’t want to be rude, but it’s really not any of her business. It’s not anyone’s business except her’s and Killian’s and she doesn’t even talk to _him_ about it most of the time.

            That’s probably why she’s being asked, really.

            “Look, I know we’re not exactly friends,” Tina says before Emma has figured out a response. “But I’ve known Killian since I was ten, before his brother found him and took him back to England. And I have never seen him so dedicated and determined to be with someone.”

            Emma’s hackles rise and she sets the popcorn aside, crossing her arms over her chest. “Is this you telling me to back off?”

            “This is me telling you to step it up. Emma, Killian is a good guy and anyone with eyes can see how you two look at each other. What are you waiting for?”

            She tries to sputter a reply but is saved by the music cutting out and Ruby calling everyone to gather around the tiny TV mounted in a corner of the diner. The channel flips to show Times Square and Emma crowds in with everyone else to watch as the ball starts its descent.

            They’re counting down the last seconds when she feels Killian’s presence behind her, doesn’t even have to look to know he’s there.

            And maybe she’s not sure anymore what she’s waiting for when it comes to him. Months ago she told herself she was waiting for life to get better, waiting for things to start coming together and hoping that she would feel like more than she was. ( _A thief, a drop-out, an orphan, the old refrain echoes_.)

           Now, surrounded by friendly and mostly-familiar faces as they all count down to the start of a new year, Emma thinks that maybe she’s already found her fresh start. She’s on the cusp of it still, but it’s so close she can taste it. It makes her want to start her own countdown, down to the day she can turn that new leaf.

            Emma doesn’t kiss Killian at New Year’s, but she turns to smile at him as the ball lights up and for the first time doesn’t resist or resent the way her heart fills when he grins down at her. 

* * *

 

             Less than a week after New Year’s she writes her math exam and two weeks later the letter comes that tells her she’s passed. (Emma nearly has a heart attack when Ruby hands her the mail, convinced that the quick results mean bad news, but apparently the six week wait for her RLA grade was abnormal.)

            Killian doesn’t come to the diner that night, so she waits outside his literature class the next day and makes him pick a hand when he spots her in the hall. He chooses the one holding a hot chocolate and she holds up the paper with her grade on it as he takes a sip. He nearly chokes on the drink, then proceeds to almost spill it when he sweeps her into a hug. The 162 doesn’t get her honours, but it’s a solid pass and she wouldn’t have been able to pull it off without his help.

            Killian insists that they celebrate and they eventually settle on going to see a movie. It’s the first time they’ve hung out together outside of Granny’s or the library and it’s startling how easy it is to cross the line she’d drawn between them. Almost to the point where Emma’s not sure what she was so scared of before.

            She drops him off at his apartment before heading back to the diner for her shift and Killian pauses with his hand on the door.

            “Just one more then, yeah?”

            Emma nods. “Next week. And then another few until I get the results.”

            “You’ll do it. I know you will.”

            She doesn’t want to jinx it, so she just smiles instead and lets herself soak in his belief in her. _One fight at a time_ , she had said the last time she’d given him a ride home. Things are better between them now, but it’s moments like this that make her think he knows exactly what it is she’s waiting for.

            Emma spends the next week studying for her science exam every spare moment she has. With only one test left until she can get her high school equivalency she feels more pressure than ever to pass. Killian joins her in the library when he has time and he’s about the only one who can get her to stop working and take a break. (Not even Granny can get her to put the books away, her attempts to intimidate falling flat as Emma studies through her shifts whenever it’s quiet.)

            January is finally almost over when the big day comes and Emma gets to the exam hall obnoxiously early. The test is in the morning, so she took the night before off and attempted a regular sleep cycle but her nerves made sleep elusive and she has to rely on caffeine to get her through. Everything she’s been working for is riding on this test, and while she can re-write it if she doesn’t pass, she doesn’t want to. She wants to be finished, and she’s going to do everything in her power to get there.

            Science is a stronger subject for her than math but that doesn’t stop her from second guessing most of her answers. Emma takes the whole allowed time and is relieved when the order comes to stop. She drives back to the diner in a daze and crashes for the entire afternoon. When she heads into the diner for her shift, Killian is already there but she refuses to indulge he and Ruby in any premature celebration. She knows they’re both rolling their eyes at her, but life taught her a long time ago not to take anything for granted.

            That’s exactly why she goes out of her way to spend time with Killian in the days following the test. She’s got nothing left to study for — she doesn’t need to be at B.U. — but she regularly meets him after class and listens to him ramble about how she absolutely should have sat in on his literature course, and he’ll be happy to lend her his books when the semester’s done, there’s one in particular he’s positive she’d enjoy, and he’s not sure if museums are her thing but the class is going next weekend and would she like to tag along to that at least? Emma listens to him each time and is increasingly unable to keep the smile off her face. It would be so easy, but still…

            Just once. Just with this one thing, she wants to be sure. 

* * *

 

            Emma really should have known that the universe would have a sense of humour when it came down to it.

            It’s early afternoon on Valentine’s Day (she’d spent most of her shift the night before decorating the diner) and Emma is loading up the bug to head to the laundromat when Ruby calls her inside and shoves an envelope into her hands.

            She knows what it is immediately and tries to keep from shaking as she tears it open and reads it over once and then again a second time. She’s still processing it when Ruby gets tired of waiting.

            “Well? What does it say?” she demands.

            “It says…” Emma looks up to find both her and Granny watching her expectantly. She might never have done it without the push from her boss, but now, holding the confirmation in her hands, the diner is the last place she wants to be.

            “It says I need the night off.”

            Ruby grins but Emma’s eyes flick over to Granny, who crosses her arms over her chest. “And here I was just going to give you a raise.”

            She gapes at her. “I — what?”

            The older woman huffs a laugh at her confusion. “Go. But tell that cute boy that if he wants to take you out next Valentine’s Day, it can’t just be spur of the moment when you’re scheduled to work.”

            Emma blinks a couple of times, then gives up trying to think of a response and leaves, getting into her car and not even waiting for it to warm up properly before driving straight to Killian’s. The grade notice sits on the empty seat next to her and she can’t stop glancing over at it, needs to make sure that she’s not dreaming the whole thing.

            She finds parking just down from Killian’s building and practically runs up the street. She knows he’s home — he doesn’t work on Mondays and his classes all finish in the morning. Plus, he’d specifically mentioned his lack of plans for today. She’s in the foyer just as Will is heading out and he holds the inner door open for her.

            “Finally decided to put puppy-dog eyes out of his misery, eh?” he teases and she rolls her eyes as she slows down.

            “Thanks for holding the door,” she says, refusing to rise to his bait and slipping inside.

            “I’ll tell Ana we’ll have to go back to her place tonight then, shall I?”

            This time Emma gives him the finger as she heads for the central stairwell and she can hear his laugh as her feet pound up the steps.

            Killian lives on the second floor of the three-storey building and she only glanced quickly at the unit number as she came in so when she knocks she’s more than a little worried about having picked the wrong apartment.

            Her jaw drops when he answers the door.

            “Don’t tell me you forgot your bloody keys again,” he says, the door opening to reveal a damp-haired, fresh-from-the-shower Killian dressed only in jeans, his shirt still in his hand. He stares at her dumbfounded when he realizes she’s not Will and Emma immediately regrets not rehearsing this, not planning out what she was going to say on the way over.

            At the rate her heart is going, it’s going to beat right out of her chest before her brain can even think up the right words.

            “Emma. Hi.”

            “Hi,” she breathes.

            And then words don’t matter because she’s kissing him. He grunts in surprise and stumbles back a half step but his hands catch her by the waist and she follows, arms winding around his neck as she chases his lips with hers. And he must have dropped his shirt on the ground at some point because she can feel both of his hands against her back, fingers spread wide like he wants to hold as much of her as he can. It feels just like their first kiss and so much better at the same time because it’s not a one-time thing anymore. She can have this. Have _him_.

            Emma’s not sure who breaks the kiss, but their chests are both heaving by the end of it and she takes a moment to just breathe him in, her forehead resting lightly against his.

            She’s _got_ to find out what soap he uses. And then make sure that it never, ever gets discontinued.

            “I got my GED,” she says finally.

            He pulls back a little to smile at her. “Congratulations.”

            “I just… I wanted to thank you.” Hesitation flashes across his features and she rushes to add, “And to ask you to dinner.”

            Killian face breaks into a grin and she blushes, unable to do anything but smile back.

            “I doubt we’ll be able to get a reservation anywhere tonight,” he says. “But I’m sure I can figure something out.”

            “You? I asked, shouldn’t I get to plan?”

            He winks at her teasing and adjust his arms around her. “I’m sure you know how to plan a date, Swan, but I’ve been thinking about this one for a while now. Indulge me.”

            _Trust me_ , he’s saying. And God help her, but she does.

            “Sure. What the hell.”

 


	3. All Grown Now (inside we're the same)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma’s finally able to start putting the past behind her, just as Killian’s decides to come back and haunt him.

            Being with Killian isn’t like being with Neal. It isn’t like anything she could have expected and she kind of hates that she keeps comparing the two in the back of her mind. But being with Neal was a rush all the time — just the two of them against the world. Emma had felt like they could do anything, as long as they had each other.

            Killian seems to think she could do anything entirely on her own.

            Being with him is a rush too. Every single time he looks at her she’s sure her heart skips a beat. But it feels different — safe, she thinks the word is. And she can’t remember the last time she felt safe around anyone.

            They take their time with things for the first couple months, even if they see each other almost every day. Emma can’t even count the number of toe-curling kisses and teasing touches before she finally sleeps over at his place. But it’d been a hellish night at work despite his near constant texting as he pulled an all-nighter of his own. (They were only together a week before she bought a phone and a cheap plan with minimal minutes but unlimited texting.) She just wants to crash afterwards, but when she gets to the garage she’s gripped by the need to see him. For there to be _something_ redeemable about the day. Emma’s not even sure how she stays awake long enough to drive over. When Killian opens the door he looks as exhausted as she feels and he wraps his arms around her as she steps into him. They’re asleep within twenty minutes and she’s never slept better.

            (When they wake up around noon and spend a couple more hours wrapped up in bed together, well, that’s never been better either.)

            Emma doesn’t stay over often, only once a week or so, and she resists showering there for a long time. (It’s not that his bathroom isn’t clean, it’s cleaner than most and better than the showers at the YWCA, but she doesn’t want it to seem like she’s just sleeping with him for the private bathroom.) When she eventually gives in, Killian gets her her own towel and a little basket to keep her toiletries in. It may just be the cutest thing anyone’s ever bought for her, even if he only got it so she can keep her stuff in his room and not upset Will’s delicate bachelor pad sensibilities. To compensate, Emma tries to cook them dinner as a thank you but it turns out the only thing she’s any good at is grilled cheese.

            Clearly, all the time she spends at the diner has had no effect on her culinary skills. She’s still working the overnight shift seven days a week, but Granny did give her a raise like she had said and they make a new deal that lets her stay in the garage rent-free as long as she’s in school.

            The catch there is that Emma has no idea what she wants to study, and so she spends a lot of time browsing different programs and trying to sort out what she can afford. She’s got time to figure it out though — by the time she writes the SATs in late May and then has her results back, she’s missed the deadline to register somewhere for the fall semester.

            When Ruby gets her acceptance to vet school, Granny hires another girl to pick up her shifts and promotes Emma to assistant manager. The title comes with another raise, and suddenly she’s making decent money and only working nights half the time, her day shifts filled with new tasks like ordering and scheduling. The whole thing feels out of the blue, and it makes her wonder if she shouldn’t start looking at restaurant manager programs as a way to pay back all the kindness the older woman has shown her. It’s not the way she ever pictured her life going, but it’s a lot better than some of the alternatives.

            Ruby and Killian take her promotion as an excuse to push her to move out of the garage and she begrudgingly agrees to look at apartments with them. Boston isn’t cheap though, and despite the salary increase there’s not much in the area that she can afford while still saving for college. Ruby’s solution for that is a roommate and she makes the suggestion often. Usually in Killian’s presence and paired with an obvious wink.

            (Emma’s grateful that he ignores the comments, only giving her a raised eyebrow and smirk whenever the subject comes up. She likes him a lot, but she’s nowhere near ready to live with him.)

            “I’ve got the perfect place,” Ruby declares one afternoon, waltzing into the diner and slipping behind the counter as if she still works there. “You remember Mary Margaret, right?”

            Emma winces because she absolutely remembers Mary Margaret as well as the embarrassment that had shot through her when she found out the student login she’d stolen back during Social Psychology belonged to one of Ruby’s closest friends.

            (Killian had laughed when she’d confessed it to him, kissing her hair and promising to keep her criminal past a secret.)

            (If only he knew.)

            “Cute pixie cut, practically already married to her prince charming?” Ruby continues, oblivious to Emma’s discomfort. “Anyway, she’s got a loft right by Coolidge Corner. She’s been crashing with David on the weekends and renting it out to tourists for some extra cash, but she’s had a couple bad apples and now she’s looking for a roommate instead! What do you think?”

            “A loft?” she asks, because if she had reservations about the idea of sharing an apartment with someone she is definitely skeptical at the thought of sharing a place lacking in actual walls.

        Ruby knows it too, and she raises a hand before Emma can shut her down. “I know what you’re thinking. But Mary Margaret has her own thing all set up with curtains and stuff so you would have the upstairs to yourself. And since there’s not actually a door, it’s super cheap!”

            “I don’t know...”

            “Just come look at it with me tomorrow. No pressure.”

            Emma sighs, and wonders if she’s ever going to be able to say no to either one of the Lucas women when they get it in their minds to help.

* * *

            When she and Ruby drive over the next day, she has to admit that the location is pretty perfect. It’d be basically a straight shot up Beacon Street to get to the diner, and while it’s not a lot closer to Killian’s place, it’s at least in the right direction. Ruby’s practically bouncing as she takes her up to the apartment and Emma does her best to seem cautiously optimistic.

            “It’s gonna be great, I promise,” she says, knocking on the door. “Mary Margaret is the nicest, sweetest person you’ll ever meet.”

            Emma has half a mind to ask how Ruby described _her_ to her friend, but keeps her mouth shut as the door opens.

            “Hi! You must be Emma,” the other girl says. “I know we’ve probably seen each other before but it’s nice to officially meet you.”

            “You too,” she says, following Ruby inside.

            The loft is spacious, boasting an open kitchen and full-sized table, a seating area, a large bathroom, and enough room leftover for Mary Margaret to block off a bedroom for herself. The décor look like shabby-chic threw up in it but Emma is surprised to find it all oddly charming. Her tour is brief — the upstairs is decorated much the same, with salvaged furniture and slanted wood panelled walls covered in distressed white paint. There’s a double bed in the middle of the space, covered in pillows and floral and something in Emma’s heart twinges when she looks at it.

            As they head back downstairs and settle onto stools at the kitchen counter to talk business, she can’t help the way her eye travels up the open staircase to where her room would be.

            She’s never had a double bed all to herself before.

            Mary Margaret’s father is paying for the place, apparently, and her would-be roommate was only renting it out so she could pocket some spending money without giving up her volunteer gig at the hospital. That’s still all she’s looking for, so the rent really would be an amazing deal, and the upstairs comes fully furnished so Emma wouldn’t have to buy anything. It’s the kind of opportunity that she almost has to take a chance on. And the loft does feel homey… she’s just not sure if it feels like home.

            Mary Margaret is talking about how she can redecorate the upstairs if she signs a contract for a year but Emma’s barely listening, her eye drawn to a little metal canister at the end of the counter that’s not unlike the ones they have at the diner. She’s reaching for it before she’s even thought it out until Ruby nudges her back to the present.

            Emma jumps like she got caught with her hand in the cookie jar and immediately goes to put it back. When she looks back to Mary Margaret though the other girl is smiling apologetically. “It’s cinnamon,” she explains. “I don’t have a lot of cupboard space so I leave it out even though I mostly just use it in the winter for hot chocolate.”

            “You put cinnamon on your hot chocolate?”

            And it’s the smallest thing, but suddenly she feels a kinship with this other person that she can’t explain.

            Emma takes a breath and folds her arms on the counter. “Can we try it for a month? See how it goes?”

            Mary Margaret nods. “Definitely,” she says, offering her hand.

            Ruby claps as they shake on it and the only thing Emma can do is wonder what Killian’s going to think when she tells him the news.

* * *

            Killian’s thrilled. (And really, what else did she expect?) He’s been on her about getting a place just as much as Ruby has, even if his methods are less of the pushy and more of the encouraging variety. He insists that she wait to move until he has a day off work so that he can help, which strikes Emma as mildly ridiculous. He’s been to the garage, he knows she’s still living out of a suitcase and a couple boxes, it’s not like she has much to move. But he’s adamant that not helping would somehow tarnish his reputation and cast their entire relationship in doubt. And it’s kind of cute, so Emma humours him. The following Tuesday he comes over just after lunch and helps her get everything ready to take out to the car.

            “I’m proud of you, you know,” he says, folding her baby blanket carefully and setting it on top of one of the boxes.

            She snorts and tucks the last corner of her just-cleaned sheets onto the mattress. “For what?”

            Killian hands her the pillow she’d pulled off in order to make the bed (she wants to leave this place as clean as possible, Granny’s given her too much for her to do otherwise) and crosses his arms over his chest.

            “For giving this a shot. I know you’ve got your reservations about the whole loft/roommate thing, but I think it’s really good.”

            Emma shrugs and doesn’t meet his eyes, uncomfortable with the whole subject. “It’s only for a month, there’s no guarantee it’ll work out after that. My hours are ridiculous — sometimes starting early, sometimes finishing early — and I’m not exactly the easiest person to get along with. I know that. I can be —”

            “Swan,” he stops her with his hands on her shoulders. Emma looks up at him reluctantly and he gives her her favourite soft smile. The one that makes her chest feel embarrassingly warm and fuzzy.

            “It’s going to be good.”

            She takes a breath and nods. “I’m nervous,” she admits.

            He kisses her, thumbing at her chin as he pulls away. “It’s going to be good,” he repeats.

            And it is. Mary Margaret is exactly as advertised; probably the nicest person Emma has ever met. There’s not a malicious bone in her body, and Emma hasn’t felt so welcome in someone else’s home in years. She’s also kind and tidy and leaves leftovers in the fridge for whenever Emma’s work schedule sees her at the loft. In return, Emma supplies free food from Granny’s and tries to let her know if and when she’s coming home. She also supplies the booze, because she’s pretty sure her new roommate would be mortified if Emma offered to get her her own fake i.d. They sit on the couch and drink grocery store wine and watch episodes of Sex and the City together and Ruby is great and all, but they don’t hang out, not like this.

            Mary Margaret’s prince charming of a boyfriend is pretty great too, though she thinks Killian might like David even more than his girlfriend does. The four of them have a movie night towards the end of the month and it makes Emma feel almost like an adult, like someone who has their shit together, hosting couples night in the apartment that she shares with her friend.

            It’s all almost too good to be true, but as the test run comes to an end and Mary Margaret asks her if she’d like to stay, Emma’s more than willing to let it go on. And if she pinches herself a little more often, it’s just because when she got out of prison a little over a year earlier she never dared to think that life could get so good so quick.

* * *

            It’s the middle of August and Killian is hanging out at the diner waiting for her shift to be over so they can grab a late dinner together. She’s busy in the back, filling out the order for the next week so that it’s ready when Granny comes in in the morning. Emma’s just about finished when she glances over at the feed from the security camera and sees that Killian’s at the counter talking to some girl she’s never seen before.

            And no, she’s not jealous, but she _is_ a little curious. There’s something about the body language on the tiny monitor (Killian stiff and clenched, the girl leaning into his space) that puts a bad feeling in her gut and that, more than anything, is what makes her set the inventory form aside and head back out front.

            “What, you’re too good now to grab a drink with an old friend?” she hears just before turning the corner.

            “We are not friends,” Killian growls.

            Emma takes a breath and throws her shoulders back as if she wasn’t just eavesdropping, walking out front with a smile on her face. She goes straight up to the two of them and leans over the counter to give Killian a quick peck.

            “I’m almost done. You okay to go soon?”

            The other girl laughs. “Never pegged you as having a thing for blondes,” she says, standing and looking Emma up and down. “Frankly, I don’t see the appeal. Let me know if you change your mind.”

            “Not bloody likely,” Killian retorts.

            “We’ll see,” she shrugs and turns to walk out of the diner. They both watch her go, and Emma rolls her eyes at the obvious sway she puts into her hips. There’s just something about her that doesn’t sit right, though it probably has as much to do with how openly hostile Killian was than anything else. (He can swear like a sailor but her boyfriend doesn’t throw _bloody_ around with random strangers.)

            “Someone you know?” she asks once the door is closed.

            Killian jumps at the question, like he’d forgotten she was there, and Emma raises a brow as he turns back to her.

            “Not really,” he answers.

            It’s not exactly a lie but it’s not the truth either and something twists in her heart. Emma shoves it away and refuses to let the doubt creep in. Killian is good to her, good _for_ her, and God knows there’re plenty of things that she hasn’t told him yet.

            She chews her lip and debates whether or not to press the issue. On the one hand, he has never been pushy about her past and she’s more grateful for that than she ever imagined she could be. On the other, they’re together now. If he _did_ ask, Emma would probably tell him.

            Eventually.

            “You said you had something to finish up still?”

            It’s bugging her, and she couldn’t care less about work anymore, but she nods and gives his hand a quick squeeze. “Yeah, just give me a minute.”

            She dashes around back and puts a few quick finishing touches on the order form, hoping her distraction doesn’t make her miss anything. (Granny always gives it a look over before she sends it in, but Emma’s still new to all the assistant manager stuff and she doesn’t want to disappoint.)

            She’ll drive herself crazy if she keeps on speculating so she squashes all her questions down before grabbing her bag. He’ll think she’s jealous if she doesn’t let it go and that’s not what it is. Not quite. (She’s just anxious — her instincts telling her that something isn’t right but not telling her _what_.) And she doesn’t want him to think that he can’t trust her, or that she doesn’t trust him. They’re supposed to have the whole night together — Mary Margaret is having her own sleepover at David’s — and she doesn’t want some silly thing to ruin it.

            (It’s not silly, but she doesn’t know what it is, and she wants so badly to be wrong.)

            Killian is standing stiffly by the counter when she comes back out but he pastes on a smile and kisses her cheek before following her out to the car. Emma smiles back and lets herself hold onto the belief that everything is better when they’re together.

            Answers can wait. He’d tell her if it was something she needed to know.

* * *

            Not two days later and her willingness to let things slide seems like it’s going to come back to bite her. It’s the early hours of the morning, the tail end of her only overnight shift of the week, and she’s alone out front when Tall, Scruffy, & Irish comes in and strikes up a conversation. Emma pours him a coffee and opts to agree with his good-natured complaints about the heat rather than question his choice of beverage.

            “I’m looking for someone,” he says after taking a sip. “And I’m hoping you can help.”

            Emma’s eyebrows go up and she starts to make a quip about having a talent for finding people until she gets a peek of the mug shot he’s pulling out of his vest. Closing her mouth, she schools her face as he places it in front of her.

            _Ursula Ketea_. Emma repeats the name silently to herself as she reads the physical description that her new customer has added on. She’s got about a million more questions about her than ever, but she’s not willing to give anything away to get answers.

            “I don’t know her,” she says. And while she may have seen her once, it’s not a lie. She didn’t even know her name before, and _Ursula_ had only spoken to Killian when she’d come into the diner.

            She can see the next question before it’s out of Irish’s mouth and decides to cut him off. “Are you a cop?” Emma asks, stepping back from the counter to put some space between them.

            She’s done nothing wrong, and she’s got nothing against the police, but that doesn’t stop her from cataloguing escape routes in the back of her mind.

            (The justice system let her down in a lot of ways — hell, her public defender didn’t even bother to file an appeal after she’d found out she was pregnant — but the cops who arrested her had only been doing their job by following up on a tip.)

            (That doesn’t mean she wants anything to do with them, though.)

            Irish smiles and she hates that she wants to trust him. Hates everything about the situation, really. “No, but I do bail bonds and Miss Ketea missed her court date this week.”

            “What’d she do?” Emma winces after she blurts out the question but figures it’s at least something any normal, curious person might ask.

            “She robbed a bank in New York.”

            Her eyes go wide. “That’s…” _Not what she was expecting_ , she thinks. “Dramatic,” she says.

            Tall, Scruffy, & Irish chuckles. “It is,” he agrees.

            “What makes you think she’s here?”

            He tucks the mug shot back into his vest and takes another drink of coffee. “I’m good at following a trail. Plus, she’s got a friend in the city from back when she was living in London. Killian Jones. You know him by any chance?”

            Emma meets his eyes and she knows that this is the point where she has to choose. He says he’s not a cop, and he hasn’t said that Killian’s done anything, but she knows. She just knows that if she makes the wrong choice it’s going to haunt her forever.

            Neal sold her out to the police so he could escape to Canada. She won’t do that. Not to Killian, not to anyone. Not ever.

            “No,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know him. Must not be a regular.”

            Irish nods and pulls out his wallet, putting a five and a business card on the counter and sliding it towards her. “Keep the change,” he says. “And give me a call if you think of anything that might help.”

            Emma chews her lip and nods, toying with a corner of the card as he taps his knuckles on the counter one more time and leaves.

            _Graham Humbert – Bail Bonds_. She shoves the business card into the pocket of her jeans and downs another coffee before Ashley and Granny come in to relieve her. She’s jittery the whole drive back to the loft and Mary Margaret is just getting up when she opens the door.

            “I need to borrow your computer,” she declares, kicking her shoes off and making a beeline for the laptop.

            “Oh — Okay,” Mary Margaret says hesitantly. “Is something wrong?”

            “I don’t know yet. That’s why I need the computer.”

            Emma’s opened a browser and pulled up search results on Ursula before Mary Margaret has crossed the room and sat down next to her on the loveseat, her hands wrapped around a steaming mug of tea.

            They scan the reports of the bank robbery together (Ursula and her fur coat-clad partner took almost 50k) and Mary Margaret doesn’t speak until Emma starts digging a little deeper, finding the website for her father’s company and even the news reports of her mother’s murder eight years prior.

            “Is this someone you know?” she asks in her gentlest voice, the one that Emma imagines her using on ten year-olds who’ve scraped their knee on the playground.

            Emma shakes her head, pushing the computer off her lap and onto the coffee table in front of them. She can’t pull her eyes from the screen though, staring at the year old picture of Ursula Ketea out at one of London’s hottest nightclubs. She’d been a socialite over there, apparently, and was photographed posing with the girl she’d later rob a bank with.

            What the hell was up with that anyway? Her dad was rich — it wasn’t like she needed the money.

            “Emma?”

            “Sorry,” she says, shaking her head again and closing the laptop. “She came into the diner a couple days ago and was talking to Killian. Then just now some bounty hunter guy came in asking if I’d seen her.”

            “You think she and Killian know each other?”

            “He said he didn’t, but the guy tonight said otherwise.”

            “Well, maybe you should talk to him about it.”

            Emma slouches down into the cushions, squeezing her eyes shut and rubbing her fingers over her forehead. Mary Margaret’s right, but it’s probably best not to confront him when she’s exhausted and dealing with an off-kilter sleep cycle.

            Whether she’ll be able to sleep before talking to him, that’s another thing altogether.

* * *

            She’s an ex.

            “Of sorts,” Killian says, his face a pained mixture of fear, embarrassment, and remorse.

            They’re at Granny’s just before her next shift — it was the soonest time they were both free — and Emma laces her fingers with his, resting their hands on the table between them and giving him a reassuring squeeze. He’s looking at her like he’s afraid she’s going to bolt and _God_ , what a pair they make — his ex a bank robber and hers a watch thief.

            He says he didn’t know about the robbery. That he didn’t even know she’d left London until she showed up at the diner and started talking to him as if no time had passed. He was a dumb teenager looking for trouble back when he knew her, he explains, and he’d left London partly to get away from it. Emma believes him, can read the open honesty in his words, and she really couldn’t care less that he and Ursula messed around back in high school.

            She opens her mouth to tell him as much only for Granny to call for her at the exact same time, asking to talk with her in the diner’s tiny back office.

            Emma sighs and gets up, giving Killian a too-brief kiss before starting her shift.

            “I don’t need to know every detail,” she promises him. “I don’t expect that. Just tell me when you’re leaving something out, okay?”

            Killian nods and the corner of his mouth manages a bit of a smile as he looks up at her. Emma fishes the bail bondsman’s card out of her pocket and leaves it for him on the table. “I’m not gonna call. Whether you do or not, that’s up to you.”

            Granny hollers for her again so she leans down for another quick peck before pushing through the door to the back.

            “Hey,” she says, leaning in the doorway. The older woman is rifling through the desk drawers looking for something and Emma doubts there’s enough room in the office for her to help so she just waits. “What’s so urgent?”

            “Ruby and I are going to visit her mother in Canada for a week,” Granny says in her typical brusque manner. “I’m leaving you in charge.”

            “Oh,” she blinks, all lingering thoughts of Killian and Ursula flying out the window as she takes in this announcement. “Okay. When?”

            “Tomorrow.”

            Emma opens her mouth to protest but Granny waves a hand dismissively before she can get a word out.

            “It’s last minute, I know. But Anita’s off studying wolves and out of the blue just invites Ruby to visit her before school starts. Like some of us don’t have real jobs and responsibilities.”

            “And you… have to go with her?”

            Her boss shoves a bottle of pills into her massive purse and puts her hands on her hips. “If I let that girl go to the northern wilderness alone, knowing my daughter? She won’t ever make it back.”

            Emma bites her lip and nods, her brain running through all the things she’s going to suddenly be in charge of.

            “You’ll be fine, don’t worry,” she says. “The schedule’s already made up, and everything else is just business as usual. You’ll have to send the order in for next week, but you’ve done the inventory and the banking before so there shouldn’t be any problems.”

            “Is there a number for where you’ll be staying?”

            “I doubt it. I’ll count myself lucky if I don’t have to sleep on the ground. But you can try Ruby’s cellphone if something comes up. Maybe we’ll have reception in the middle of nowhere, who knows?”

            “Right,” she says blankly.

            Emma doesn’t like it when she can’t see things coming and she has the distinct feeling that not everything is going to be as smooth as Granny seems to think.

            “I have to get home and pack. You’re alright here?”

            She nods. The current shift is the least of her worries.

            Granny squeezes past her out of the office and Emma stays standing in the doorway, watching the feed from the security camera without really registering it.

            “Emma?” she hears.

            She turns to see Granny standing by the back door, hip resting against the push handle.

            “I wouldn’t put you in charge if I didn’t think you could do it.”

            Emma nods and puts on what she’s sure is still a hesitant smile. “I can do it,” she repeats, more for herself than her boss.

            Granny smiles, big and wide. “That’s a girl,” she says.

* * *

            Emma manages to not run the diner into the ground the first few days, though she wouldn’t be surprised if she collapses at some point from all the running around. She knows she should probably be delegating better, but she’ll run herself ragged for a week if it means making sure everything goes well. Besides, the quickly approaching school year means students are back in the city which means that business picks up while Granny is away to the point where Emma seriously considers crashing in the garage she once called home. Mary Margaret and Killian team up to make sure she eats and sleeps but she still relies on an abnormal amount of coffee to get by, splitting her own shifts so that she’s there for the busiest parts of each day and hanging around at night when she needs to get administrative stuff done.

            It’s under control though, and she doesn’t mind the even crazier than normal hours if it means Granny coming back to find everything in top shape. Four days in and she even gives herself a full night off, leaving the diner along with the rest of the dinner crew. She sets her alarm to go in for eight the next morning and watches a bit of tv before going up to bed.

            Naturally, that’s when the flood happens.

            The call comes at one in the morning from their new overnight waitress, Anna. The men’s washroom has flooded and there’s water everywhere so Emma drags herself out of bed and drives back to work, switching the ‘open’ sign off as soon as she’s in the door.

            It’s a mess. It had been raining when she’d left work but it must have poured while she slept because it was clearly too much for the system to handle. There’s over an inch of water throughout the diner that came up from the drain in the floor and she’s just glad that it seems to have stopped. Anna and Anton are working with mops and brooms in the back, trying to push the water out the door and Emma grabs a push broom and pitches in.

            It takes them two hours to get the water out and give the whole place a pass with the mop. Emma’s socks are soaked through her shoes and her pants are wet halfway up her calf despite repeated attempts to roll them up. She sinks into a booth once they’re done and Anna joins her, flopping down on the other side like it were a couch. Emma looks at her and then up at Anton standing behind the counter and sighs.

            “Go home,” she says. “Get some sleep. I’ll come back to open with the morning shift and call the insurance.”

            “Are you sure?” Anna asks.

            “Yeah,” she says. She’s definitely sure. And she’s never wearing these socks ever again.

            “I’ll call my sister to come pick me up.”

            “I’ll take you,” Anton says before turning to Emma. “You go home.”

            She smiles up at him, never more grateful for his steady presence. “Yes, boss,” she replies dryly, standing and pulling Anna up to her feet.

            Emma switches all the lights off and locks up behind them. As she heads around to the tiny parking lot she sees Anna turning someone away, promising that they’ll be open in the morning. She can’t see properly through the glare of the streetlight and her increasingly blurry vision but for a moment she could swear it’s Ursula. Then she remembers that she’s exhausted and probably seeing things so she unlocks the door to the bug and blasts music on the drive home to stay awake. She’s back at the loft and is peeling off her wet socks when it hits her that her phone is still on the desk in the office from when she was searching for Granny’s list of emergency numbers.

            It’s the least of her worries though, really, and as she flops onto the bed at nearly four in the morning it’s almost a little comforting to think that this is the worst night she’s had in over a year.

* * *

            Of course, just because the night was horrible doesn’t mean the next day is going to be any better.

            Emma gets to the diner twenty minutes before the morning shift is due to start, not wanting them to be surprised by Granny’s being closed. She won’t open until they’re all there, but the least she can do is get the coffee machine going again. (God knows she needs it!)

            That means that there’s no one around to hear her curse when she steps behind the counter and sees the open cash register. It’s been cleared out completely — even of pennies — and she immediately rushes to the back to check the stash of change and small bills that Granny keeps in her desk.

            The office is a mess. Papers are strewn everywhere and the drawers have been ransacked. Despite that, it doesn’t take much of a search to figure out that the cash is gone. Emma tries to reach for her phone, forgetting for a moment that it’s probably been knocked to the floor along with everything else. The diner’s landline isn’t working either, and it’s as she’s on her hands and knees plugging the cord back into the wall jack that Ashley comes in, startling her enough that she bumps her head on the desk.

            “What happened?” the young mother asks, her eyes wide as she takes in the mess.

            “We flooded,” Emma answers, sitting back on her heels with a wince. “Then we were robbed.”

            “Oh my god! We should call the police!”

            “Yeah,” she says dryly, picking the phone up off the ground and standing back up. “That’s just what I was about to do.”

            But since the robbery is not currently in process the call gets listed as non-emergency and Emma winds up waiting almost an hour for the cops to arrive. In the meantime she fills everyone in, straightens up the office a bit, and watches the tape from the security camera.

            What she sees almost makes her sick.

            Ursula, waving to the camera as she dumps the money into her purse. She’d _seen_ her the night before. Seen her and then let her over-tired brain convince her otherwise. It’s enough to make her wish she hadn’t tidied up already so she could throw something and have it not be obvious.

            Granny is going to kill her. She doesn’t know what the hell kind of point Ursula was trying to make, stealing a few hundred bucks from a family-run restaurant, but it probably wouldn’t have happened if Emma hadn’t gotten a little possessive the day she came into the diner.

            Panic starts to set in, her mind filling with all the ways she could have maybe prevented this or at least lessened the blow — if she had told Granny about Killian’s bank robber of an ex back when Ursula first showed up, if she hadn’t closed the diner after the flood, if she hadn’t ignored her gut when she’d seen Ursula the night before. But now she’s here, the rug pulled out from under her, and facing the very real possibility of losing everything she thought she’d gained. This is what she gets for being too comfortable, for letting a place feel like home.

            All in all, Emma thinks she’d rather be pushed out in front of a car again.

            She needs to call Killian. He might not know about the robbery but maybe there’s something, _anything_ , from their past that could help — where Ursula might go, what she might do next. Wildly, she thinks that if she can get the money back then maybe it will be alright.

            Only she still hasn’t found her phone even though she cleaned up a little and the cops show up while she’s wracking her brain trying to remember the second half of his cell number. (She had it memorized just months ago, before she bought her phone and plugged him into speed dial. Emma doesn’t know if she’s forgotten it entirely since then or if she can’t remember it because she’s _freaking out_.)

            The police are nice enough. They take her statement as she explains how the diner was closed for a few hours after flooding the night before and that Granny is out of the country and currently unreachable. Emma shows them the security tape, and as they’re taking it in for evidence she looks up and sees that they brought with them none other than Mr. Irish Bounty Hunter. He’s watching her with a funny look on his face and Emma scowls back at him. She’s really not interested in an “I told you so.”

            The cops leave but Irish — Graham Humbert, she recalls — sticks around, leaning in the doorway and knocking on the frame like he wasn’t just listening in as she gave her statement.

            “Can I help you?” she asks, more aggressively than she probably needs to.

            “I was sorry to hear you got robbed.”

            “Join the club,” Emma snorts, going back to searching for her phone. (Only the money was taken, nothing else, so where the hell _is it_?)

            “Have you talked to Killian yet?”

            “Alright, you know what?” She crosses her arms over her chest and turns back around, fighting to hold back the ‘screw you’ on the tip of her tongue. “I lied. There. Are you happy? I wasn’t interested in maybe throwing someone under the bus until they’d had a chance to explain first. Maybe if you’d done your job and caught her already I wouldn’t be in this mess!”

            Her accusation hangs in the air between them. The diner phone chooses that moment to ring and Emma shuts her eyes against whatever new problem is doubtlessly on its way to her.

            The bail bondsman hangs his head with a wry smile and gives her a nod. “You’re right, I’ll let you get back to work. And I suppose I should be getting back to mine.”

            Emma gives him a short nod but doesn’t move until he turns to leave. Sitting down, she picks up the receiver on the fourth ring and gets almost ten seconds of relief at hearing Killian’s voice on the other end before her heart plummets.

* * *

            Emma clutches onto the receiver with both hands, her head buzzing as Killian tells her how Ursula called and taunted him about robbing the diner, how he’s going to make it right.

            “Please don’t do anything stupid,” she begs, hating that she’s stuck on a corded landline and can’t keep him on the phone and go after him at the same time.

            “It’s my mess. I’m going to fix it, Swan. I promise.”

            The line goes dead but she doesn’t hang up, keeping the receiver to her ear and shutting her eyes as if she can get him back through force of will alone.

            When the hell did it all get _so fucked_?

            “Emma?”

            She opens her eyes to see Ashley inching towards her carefully, like she’s gonna spook and run at any moment.

            She wants to run. God, does she want to run. But for the first time in a long time she wants to run _towards_ something instead of away.

            “Is that guy who came in with the cops still here?” she asks.

            “Um, I think he just left, like, thirty seconds ago.”

            Emma nods blankly and puts the phone down. “I need to go deal with something. You’re in charge until I get back.”

            She doesn’t wait for any kind of confirmation, just grabs her bag and runs out the back door as Ashley stands there with a worried look on her face.

            “Mr. Humbert!” she yells. He’s by what she assumes is his car and she almost sags in relief when he hears her and turns around.

            “Graham, please.”

            “Graham,” she corrects, stopping in front of him. “Ursula stole my cell. She called Killian from it and now he’s going after her.”

            “Did he tell you where she is?”

            She shakes her head. “No. I don’t think he knows for sure yet.”

            Graham nods and pulls out his phone, tapping the touchscreen a few times before handing it to her. “Enter your info in, maybe we can track it.”

            Emma doesn’t even question it, typing her email and account info into the tracking app with shaking hands. He takes it back from her and they both wait as the GPS tries to find her phone and with it (hopefully) Ursula and Killian. Something must turn up because soon he’s opening the car door and Emma has to run around to get to the passenger side.

            Graham raises his eyebrows at her as she buckles up and she feigns surprise.

            “What?”

            “You’re not coming with me.”

            “It’s my cellphone, my boyfriend, and my boss’s money. Yes, I am.” She plucks the phone from his hand and looks at the map onscreen. “She’s by the waterfront downtown.”

            Graham gives her one last exasperated look before apparently giving up. “Just tell me if she starts moving,” he mutters, pulling onto the street and heading north.

            It’s early still and traffic is mercifully light. Emma doesn’t take her eyes off Graham’s phone the whole way down Storrow Drive, tapping her foot restlessly as they finally merge onto the I-93. She feels like she’s been split in two. Like part of her is waiting in a parking garage while the other half rushes to get there before the cops. She doesn’t know what kind of trouble Killian could be in, but she’ll never forgive herself if something happens because she didn’t get there in time.

            “Ursula’s the less dangerous of the two,” Graham says finally, glancing over at her. “Her partner is the real sociopath.”

            _If he’s trying to make this better_ , she thinks, _he’s doing a pretty terrible job at it_.

            “You know what I don’t get?” she says instead. “Why the diner? She couldn’t have gotten more than a grand. Why even bother when you’ve already robbed a bank?”

            Graham shrugs, conceding the point. “I don’t think it’s ever been about the money for her. She’s after attention. She got bail because she cooperated and told the NYPD where the money was stashed.”

            “Where was it?”

            “Top of the Empire State Building. Apparently she likes the view.”

            The pinged location on the GPS hasn’t moved the entire drive and Emma holds her breath as they turn onto Atlantic Avenue. Graham parks in the lot of a tiny, brown and red lobster shack called James Hook & Co and Emma’s out of the car before he can even unbuckle his seatbelt, running towards the little red dot on the phone at a breakneck pace. She can hear Graham behind her, panting as he tries to catch up, but she doesn’t stop until she’s passed under the arch of the Boston Harbor Hotel and is on the wharf, staring at the boats on the water as her heart tries to beat its way out of her chest.

            Graham stops next to her and bends over, hands braced on both knees for support.

            “She’s still here?” he asks, completely out of breath.

            “Somewhere,” she says.

            Turning around, he looks up at the hotel behind them.

            “Maybe she got a room.”

* * *

            The lobby of the Boston Harbor Hotel is more opulent than any building she’s ever been in. Graham walks straight up to the desk to ask about Ursula and Emma hangs back, barely even listening as he attempts to charm information out of the concierge. She knows she doesn’t fit here, knows her presence won’t prompt the hotel to tell them anything. Instead she scans the lobby, hoping to catch sight of Killian. He would have had to borrow a car from one of his friends; there’s a chance they might have caught up to him.

            All she sees though are hotel guests making their way down for breakfast and frustration mixed with hopelessness starts to set in. Emma’s long since given up trying to stop the worst-case scenarios from running on loop in her mind. Her accidental partner may think Ursula’s not dangerous — or at least, not _as_ dangerous — but she’s learned better than to expect that things will all turn out okay.

            The Swans. Lily. Ms. Fisher. Neal. Every time she thinks she’s found someone who’ll stick around, life has a way of sending it to hell in a hand basket.

            There’s some sort of map exhibit on display showing the coastline and the Boston waterfront over the centuries and it makes her think of the way Killian is always going on about taking her sailing someday. She’s wandered over to the nearest one without even really thinking about it when her eye catches on a small sign.

            Foster’s Rotunda. Observatory. Ninth Floor.

            _She liked the view_.

            Emma sucks in a breath and looks over her shoulder to where Graham is still standing. He’s got his back to her and she makes up her mind quickly, dashing over to the elevators and slipping into an open one, hoping he didn’t notice her disappear.

            He may have let her come along, but he’s clearly got friends in the Boston PD and she won’t let Killian get in trouble if she can prevent it.

            Emma doesn’t think she’s ever been in a slower elevator before in her life but eventually the doors open on the ninth floor and she steps out, quickly locating the rotunda. The sign by the door shows that it’s only open Monday to Friday between 11am and 4pm but there are tiny scratch marks around the key hole and the door opens easily when she turns the handle.

            The observatory sits atop the arch of Rowes Wharf and inside is a large, bi-level reception room underneath a massive coffered dome. Floor to ceiling windows provide views of downtown and the Greenway on one side and Boston Harbor on the other. The first thing that Emma actually notices, however, is the mahogany bar and the dark mop of hair visible from the other side of it.

            “Killian?” she hisses, inching a little closer.

            He pops up from behind the bar, sea-green tote bag in one hand, and she closes the rest of the distance.

            “Swan? What the hell are you doing here?”

            “I followed you. Is Ursula still here?” She scans the room but there’s not really any place else for someone to hide.

            “No, she ran out a little while ago. I was just about to do the same when you came in.”

            Emma balls her hands into fists, not sure whether she wants to punch him or kiss him. “What were you thinking going after her alone? Why couldn’t you just phone in a tip to the cops?”

            “Why didn’t you?” he retorts.

            “Because I didn’t want you to get in trouble! They know you two know each other. What if they think you had something to do with it?” Her eyes fall to the bag in his hand and she frowns. “Is that…?”

            “Aye,” he says, scratching behind his ear as he hands it over to her. Emma opens the handbag to see it half-filled with cash, the crumpled bills all thrown in haphazardly. “I was going to try and count it before calling you so we’d know if it was short or not. I was bringing it back, love. I swear.”

            The door opens and they both look up, Killian tugging her behind him before she can turn around to see who it is.

            “Everybody stay where you are!”

            The accented voice comes from the entry way and Emma exhales in relief as Graham comes into view, flanked by a security guard.

            Before she can get a word out though, Killian rips the purse from her hand and sets it on the floor in front of them, holding his arms out. “She doesn’t have anything to do with this. Let her go and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

            Emma closes a hand around his arm and steps out from behind him, knowing she has to stop things before they possibly get out of hand. (Killian’s posturing is nice in a way, but it’s not going to get them out of there.)

            “Ursula’s not here,” she says. “She left the money from the diner behind when she ran.”

            “I take it she’s also the one who picked the lock on the door?”

            Emma’s gaze shifts over to the security guard who loses whatever intimidation factor he had when he lets out a huge yawn after finishing his question.

            She raises an eyebrow. “You’d have to check the tape. It was open when I got here.”

            Killian opens his mouth to speak but she gives his arm a squeeze and steps forward to pick up the green tote bag.

            “Look,” she says, walking up to Graham and offering him back his phone. “The red dot’s moving again. You can either go after your bail skip or you can stand around here some more. But I don’t think your cop friends would be too happy to find out you let a nineteen year-old girl tag along on your fugitive chase. So we’re gonna go, and I’m gonna take the money back to the diner and tell the police that it was returned anonymously. Does that work for you?”

            Graham takes the phone from her and glances at the tracking app before finally giving her a considering look. “You’re a lot tougher than you look, you know that?”

            Emma shrugs. “Never really had much of a choice.”

            There’s a pause, then he nods and steps aside so they can leave. Emma waits as Killian closes the distance between them and she takes his hand, lacing their fingers together tightly before shifting the purse strap onto her shoulder and stepping out into the hall.

* * *

            He wants to explain, but as soon as she gets into the car he borrowed from Tina the adrenaline she’s been running on abandons her and she just… she just can’t yet. Emma makes him drop her at the diner so she can deal with everything there first, hoping that maybe if she can get _something_ actually accomplished she’ll be in a better frame of mind to hear him out.

            She’s pissed. Beyond pissed, really, that he would do something so stupid as go after Ursula alone. Only her anger is mixed with worry and overlaid by all of her old fears that whisper in her ear and tell her that somehow, someway, she’s going to come out of this alone. Left behind yet again.

            He pulls into Granny’s and she kisses his cheek before she gets out of the car, promising to come by his place when she’s done. She has no idea when that will be, really, but he says he’ll wait for her. Whenever she’s ready.

            (She’s never ready, never going to be ready, but since when has that mattered?)

            Emma spends hours at the diner, talking to the police and the insurance, trying to get things set to rights again. She refuses to tell Ashley or anyone else where she ran off to and stays busy in the back to keep from being sucked into the diner gossip machine. As much as she would like to try and head off the rumour mill, she can’t get a hold of Granny for the life of her. But her boss will be back in two days and at this point… she’s done everything she can. If she’s to blame, if she loses her job over it all, then so be it.

            It’s mid-afternoon by the time she drives over to Killian’s place. He doesn’t even know she’s on her way — she’d forgotten she didn’t have a phone to text him with until she was already in the bug.

            She’s exhausted. Just so, so exhausted. From the flood and the robbery and the chasing after Ursula and the picking up the pieces and all she wants to do is curl up in bed with Killian and sleep for a week but she can’t. Not until she faces this down. Whatever it is or turns out to be.

            Killian buzzes her up and when he opens the door she’s not sure which of them looks worse. He lets her in and then follows her through to his bedroom. The blind is still down and the bed is a mess and it’s not like him at all. It’s one thing if Ursula woke him up when she called, it’s another that he hasn’t fixed it yet. He shuts the door to give them some privacy and Emma doesn’t know if Will is in the apartment or not, but she supposes it’s for the best. Even if the confined space is making her skittish.

            _God, she wishes she knew what she were in for_.

            She sits down on the edge of the bed and waits.

            “I, ah,” Killian’s fingers flex and curl at his side and she itches to reach out and stop him but she stays put, picking at a loose thread on her shirt instead.

            “I thought you were brilliant today,” he finally offers.

            Emma tries to smile up at him but it comes off as more of a grimace before her face settles back to carefully (fearfully) neutral.

            “I know that I…” he stops, takes a breath, and starts over again. “I know that I owe you an explanation but I wanted to apologize first. You never would have been dragged into this if not for me. We don’t really talk about our pasts, but I know you’ve been hurt before and I… I wanted to be better than that for you. I’m sorry I wasn’t.”

            Emma meets his eyes in the mostly dark room and she wants to reassure him, to let him know that he hasn’t hurt her. But she can’t. He still might, depending on what he has to say. On if he lied when he claimed to not know anything, on what impact the truth will have on them now.

            “Why did she do it?” she asks quietly.

            He shakes his head. “I don’t know. Honestly. My best guess is she just wanted to fuck with me, get back at me for leaving her behind when I came over for university. We were… I was in a bad spot, back when we were hooking up. I told you my dad went to prison, yeah?”

            She nods because it’s one of the first things he ever told her, back in Social Psychology when she didn’t want to be anywhere near him.

            Killian sits down on the bed next to her, a careful inch of space between them, and runs a hand through his hair. “After he was arrested, I went into the foster system for a bit. Spent about a year and a half in a group home until someone figured out I had family in London still. I remember it was a week before my fifteenth birthday so I’d been in Boston for a few years by that point. Liam picked me up from the airport, took me back to his flat, and told me that our mother hadn’t died in a car accident after all. That my father had kidnapped me and run away to America because she’d been murdered and he was the main suspect.”

            “Jesus, Killian,” she breathes, covering his hand with her own without even thinking about it. She’d always known they were a lot alike, but could never have imagined anything like this.

            He stares down at their hands and brushes his thumb softly against the side of her palm. Emma squeezes back in reply and waits for the rest.

            “I was so angry after I found out,” he says finally, raising his head to meet her eyes. “I wanted to hurt him but I couldn’t so I hurt anything else I could instead. Ursula was the same, right down to her murdered mother and blaming her father for it. He’d moved them to London so they’d be safer and she hated every minute of it. We started looking for trouble. All the normal teenaged sorts — drinking, smoking, shoplifting, vandalism, you name it. Never got caught for anything, but Liam knew. By the time I had to start applying to universities he’d had enough. Said I could either join him in the navy or go to school abroad but I wasn’t staying in London. Called us ‘codependent’ and said he wanted me to grow up before I turned into my dad.”

            “Seems like you’ve done pretty well,” she murmurs, bumping her shoulder into his.

            Killian just shakes his head. “I let Ursula get to me. She’s always known which buttons to push and this morning… You were right when you accused me of being reckless. I thought I could fix things, but instead it nearly cost me everything. Let alone what it might have cost you.”

            “It didn’t though,” she says. She can see it now — how he’d been just as terrified of losing everything as she was. Just as certain that everything was going to go bad like it always did.

            “I don’t want to be like him,” he whispers and Emma’s heart nearly breaks with the way his voice catches. “I don’t want to wind up hurting the people I care about.”

            She crawls onto his lap before he has time to say another word, cupping his face between her hands and kissing him. Killian’s arms wrap around her waist but his heart’s not in it and she pulls away from his lips to pepper kisses all over his face.

            “You didn’t hurt me,” she promises. “You’ve done the opposite of hurting me ever since we met, even when I was pushing you away.”

            He closes his eyes and she can tell he doesn’t believe her still so she kisses him again briefly and pulls back, waiting for him to look at her.

            Because she gets it now. They’re the same. Kindred spirits down to their core. And while that means that shitty things have happened to them in the past, it also means that they won’t ever do shitty things to each other. Knowing that with the surety that she does makes her unexpectedly at peace with what she’s about to confess.

            Emma pushes some of the hair out of his eyes and he finally looks at her, gaze searching hers like he doesn’t understand how she hasn’t left yet.

            “Do you remember _why_ you told me that your dad had gone to prison?”

            Killian frowns and she drags her thumb down to the corner of his mouth. “Gold was going off about the prison experiment and you looked uncomfortable. I wanted to distract you but you weren’t interested.”

            “You guessed that I knew someone who had gone to jail. And you were right, but probably not in the way that you thought. My last boyfriend — my only other boyfriend,” she corrects, “He’d stolen some watches before we met and I offered to go get them so we could start a life together; figured it’d be easy since the cops weren’t looking for me. And they weren’t. Until he left me wearing one and phoned in a tip while he took off to Canada or God knows where. I did eleven months in juvie over in Phoenix. Found out I really hate the desert.”

            “Emma —”

            Everything he wants to say is written out on his face — anger and sadness both fighting for dominance. Emma shakes her head to stop him, taking his hands and holding them close, needing him to understand why she’s finally telling him.

            “This morning, when you didn’t know that it was Graham and not the police coming in? I was the one holding the bag of stolen money. And you tried to protect me. No one’s ever done anything like that for me before.”

            “You didn’t need me to,” he points out and she smiles because she can tell that he’s coming back around to her now.

            “No. But it was nice that you did.”

            Killian lets out a breathless sort of chuckle and her smile breaks into a grin, her heart lighter than it’s been in days despite their conversation and the heavy subject matter.

            “I don’t mind if you’re not perfect, you know,” she says. “Makes it a little easier on me.”

            It’s his turn to kiss her this time — _finally_ — and he sucks her bottom lip between his teeth before rolling them over so she’s underneath him. Emma’s body races to catch up and she scooches up the bed until her legs aren’t dangling over the side anymore, her hands gripping his arms to pull him with her. Killian crawls overtop her, trailing a line of kisses down her neck and chest, muttering about how she _is_ perfect, so bloody perfect, covering her skin in praise and promises. And _God_ she wants this, needs this release from all the tension that’s built up over the last few days, that final reassurance of having him inside her and everything being okay.

            He mouths at her breast through her shirt and she yawns.

            Killian snorts and raises an eyebrow as he lifts his head to look at her. “Are you tired, by chance?”

            “So tired,” she groans, not sure whether she wants to laugh or yawn again.

            Killian shifts so that he’s no longer horizontal across the bed, taking her hand and tugging until she moves up to join him on the pillow. He kisses her again — so much slower this time — and Emma can’t find the energy to open her eyes after he pulls away.

            “Sleep for a bit,” he murmurs, pulling the blanket over them and settling his free arm around her waist.

            And then, quietly, “I love you.”

            They’ve never said it before and she’s half asleep already so Emma just hums contentedly, burrowing into him and the safe warmth of his arms.

            (When she wakes hours later he’s watching her softly and toying with the ends of her hair. Emma kisses him through still-blurry eyes and whispers “I love you too” against his lips.)

* * *

            Emma always thought that telling someone — _anyone_ , Killian or otherwise — about Neal would leave her exposed. Would leave her weak and vulnerable to being used the same way all over again. She never thought that it could make her strong. And yet that’s exactly what it does. Emma’s never felt as sure of anything as she does now in her relationship with Killian. And it’s not the “I love you’s” that they exchanged along with the tragic backstories, but the trust that let that happen in the first place.

            Before, every time she’d put her trust in someone it’d been a blind leap of hope. Trusting Lily when she said she was an orphan too, trusting Ms. Fisher when she said she wanted to adopt her, trusting Neal when he said he wanted to make a home with her. But with Killian she doesn’t have to just hope that her trust isn’t misplaced. She knows it isn’t. Knows that he wants her despite her messy past, that he’s in it just as much as she is.

            The two of them are hardly ever apart in the days immediately following the robbery. They alternate sleeping at each other’s apartments and if Killian isn’t working then he’s at the diner with her while she finishes running things for Granny. Apart from having to buy a new phone, Emma gets a blissfully smooth last couple days in charge (after the flood and robbery, what else could go wrong, really?) and resolves to take a few days off of her own as soon as possible.

            If she doesn’t get fired, that is.

            Contrary to her fears though, Granny is completely understanding and chalks it up to a streak of bad luck. When it comes to Ursula, Emma tells the same story she gave the police — that the money was returned anonymously. And though she knows some of her co-workers have told their boss about how she ran out after the robbery, only to come back an hour later with the cash in hand, Granny doesn’t ask her about it.

            She _does_ get asked her opinion on a new floor though. Apparently a flood is the perfect excuse to finally make an upgrade or two.

            The semester starts up and she and Killian have to work out the best times to see each other around his class schedule again. And with Granny back, Emma gets a reprieve from being at the diner all hours of the day. Finally, everything goes back to normal.

            So really, it’s almost not a surprise when Graham Humbert walks into Granny’s about a week and a half later.

            “What on earth do you want now?” she demands, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning her hip against the counter.

            Graham just smirks as he walks up. “Maybe I enjoy the coffee.”

            Emma rolls her eyes and he has the nerve to wink at her before pulling her old phone out of his breast pocket. “Thought you might want this back.”

            She takes it from him, sliding it into her jeans before fiddling with the napkin dispenser. “You caught her, then?” she asks, looking up at him.

            “I did,” he says.

            Emma’s not quite sure how she feels about that, but she’s saved from having to think about it when Graham clears his throat.

            “Can I ask — how did you know to look in the rotunda?”

            She shrugs. “I saw the sign for it in the lobby. You said she liked the view from the Empire State Building. It was a lucky guess.”

            “It was a strong hunch,” he counters. “You’ve got good instincts, Emma.”

            “I know where people like to go when they run. Usually I’m pretty good at finding them.” _She’d run often enough herself to be an expert at it_ , she thinks wryly.

            Graham pulls out his business card and pushes it towards her on the counter. “If you’re ever interested in putting those instincts to use, let me know.”

            Emma picks up the card skeptically. “What, like a job?”

            He nods. “Your partner skills need work, admittedly, but I think you’d be good.”

            She chews the inside of her lip, not sure what she thinks about _that_ either.

            Graham raps his knuckles on the counter, pulling her attention again. “Think about it,” he says. “And if you have any questions, give me a call.”

            She does think about it. A lot. It’s in the back of her mind the rest of her shift and all of the drive over to Killian’s place. They talk about it over grilled cheese sandwiches and he offers up his laptop for research when he goes to jump in the shower.

            Bail bonds, it turns out, is mostly a loans business, only turning to skip tracing when a client doesn’t appear for their court date. Graham works with an affiliated office in New York and he has a good reputation in Boston, which she guesses is the reason why he took up the hunt for Ursula once she hit Massachusetts. He’s also often recommended by defense attorneys in the city, including the queen of them all, Ms. Regina Mills.

            From the little she knows, it feels right. It’s certainly up her alley, and a more natural fit than working in restaurants for the rest of her life. But Emma’s done too much work to just be good at something. She wants to be qualified too.

            It’s Killian who suggests looking at Criminal Justice programs, settling onto the bed next to her in just his towel. Emma pulls up the site for Boston University, quickly finding an undergraduate certificate program consisting of four night courses. They’re each only one night a week so she could do two a semester, have it finished in a year, and still leave most of her time open for work.

            Killian hands her her phone from the bedside table and she fishes Graham’s card out of her pocket, chewing her lip as she looks at the numbers.

            “Not sure yet?” he asks.

            Emma shakes her head and glances over at him. “No. No, I’ve decided.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The initial idea for this fic was to tell how Emma got into bail bonds, so while this is the end of the story proper it’s not necessarily the end of stories in this universe. I love these two so very much, and there are a bunch of things that I’d love to see as they go forward.


End file.
